Dying Breaths
by Bekkitzz
Summary: 50000 years ago, the Prothean Empire was suddenly and mysteriously wiped out.  The untold story of their downfall and destruction is one of terror, confusion, treason, and war; but, above all else, a story of hope.
1. Prologue: The Emperor Calls

**Prologue**

_"To be thus is nothing/ but to be safely thus"_

"Just how many stars _are_ there, anyway?" the child breathed, his awestruck query nearly drowned out by the low whistling of the nighttime wind. As he said this his eyes seemed to grow to comical size, looking as if they might simply pop from his sockets; it was as if he somehow hoped to take in the entire breadth of the universe and never let go. On a whim he reached out his hand and made to squeeze one of the tiny points of light between his fingers, rolling it back and forth as one might a tiny ball of clay.

The father laughed quietly at the spectacle, disarmed by his son's simply innocence. "N'resh," he began, his deep, warbling voice further building the sense of majesty, "there are more stars and more planets in our universe than you could _ever _begin to imagine – and each and every last one of them is special in its own way." The father thought about this fact for a while, trying to wrap his head around this sheer size and scale of the galaxy they lived in; it made playful diversions like these seem trivial by comparison. He slowly lay backwards beside his son and allowed his eyelids to gently droop to a close. His breaths came in a slow, placid cadence; to his right he could faintly make out the tiny, fleeting breathing of N'resh. He suddenly wished that moments like these could last forever; he allowed his mind to drift away as he tried to take in each and every detail – the cool sting of the night air as it meandered over the hill; the soft, uneven tickling of the wet grass against his neck; the mournful, ethereal cries of the insects as they carried across the lake.

The father groaned and grunted slightly as the familiar aches and pains of old age flared up across his back; with some difficulty he tried to shift himself to a more comfortable position. It was the little burdens like these that reminded him he would soon be too old to run carefree through the fields with his son; he knew he should make peace with this reality, but the imminent loss of such childish luxuries only seemed to make him want to hold onto them more. He knew bitterly that his son noticed this irresistible decline in his father's health; instinctively the father looked to his side, meeting his son's amused grin with one of his own. "When you become as old as I, N'resh, you'll realize just how hard we adults have it with all of our back problems." As if the illustrate he pounded a bony fist to his lower back, listening to the crack-crack-crack of his spine. N'resh merely rolled his eyes and turned away.

A long but welcome silence interceded between the two as they stared back up at the sky; enjoying the scene together, but each in their own way. The father began to consider again the stunning breadth of the universe. He found his mind drifting unavoidably back to the difficult questions which had plagued his every moment, both awake and asleep, for the past months. How many of those tiny stars did he hold jurisdiction over as governor – A dozen, maybe two? How many more lives would have to be lost before order could be restored to the Empire? Each new disaster – every new report of bombings, raids, and sabotage burdened him with the crushing weight of guilt and responsibility. At once the canvass of stars above seemed to bear down on him like a coffin, entombing him amidst his doubts and fears. The father closed his eyes and willed with all his might for it to go away.

Eventually N'resh uttered a tiny, pointed cough; a filial imitation of a habit his father had picked up over the years. A few moments later, the intended question finally came.

"Dad?"

"Yes, my son?"

N'resh seemed to mull his question over in his head before continuing. "Does the Emperor rule every star? I mean, every last one of them?"

The question took his father by surprise; despite his office as an Imperial governor there was an intentional lack of political talk at home. It was a strangely sophisticated question; more suited to the ramblings of an Imperial metaphysicist than for a young child. What sort of answer should he give to someone so little? The pause between the two of them continued to stretch on uncomfortably. "Dad, did you hear me? I said-"

"Well…what do you think, N'resh?" the father decided upon uneasily, his sentence dangling as if unfinished.

The response seemed to satisfy the child's expectations regardless. He leaned back again and placed a tiny hand beneath his chin "Well, I mean, in school the other day my teacher was talking to us about history, and he told me that the Emperor of all Protheans was the rightful king of every last thing in the whole wide _universe_!"

The father considered this carefully for a moment. "I see now. And what do _you_ think?"

In the deepening darkness he could still see his son's tiny head whip back and forth in defiance. "I don't think that could possibly be true. Like…how would he keep track of them all and stuff? There are millions of them!"

N'resh nearly jumped out of his skin and the booming, throaty laugh which erupted from his father. It was rare lately for his father to even laugh at all. He grinned somewhat half heartedly; not convinced his joke was that funny, but happy to see that his father was laughing. Belatedly he added his own giggling into the mix.

"I love you, Dad."

"And I you, son." The father closed his eyes again, and for a very long time they side-by-side in silence, their mere presence together already saying everything that needed to be said. It was an irreplaceable moment in time.

Eventually night's opaque blanket continued its descent across the planet, and the father was suddenly stricken by the lateness of the hour. "All right, kiddo," he sighed as he willed his stiffened bones to life. "It's getting late and your mother will have my head if we don't get you back home."

"Oh boy _will_ she!" N'resh laughed, apparently delighted at the thought of his father being chastised. He clambered to his feet and posed comically; hands on his hips, his legs spread squarely apart. "_Tadosh, I've told you a million times already, he can't be staying up that late!"_

Tadosh put on a façade of mock outrage. "What, are you kidding me?" He laughed, "Your mother is _way_ more annoying than that!" He froze where he stood, adopting a stance reminiscent of a towering tyrant. _"Is it too much to ask for everybody to clean up their dishes around here!" _He laughed and jogged to catch back up.

The path back to the house from the lake was windy and poorly lit, and for a while the pair kept their energies focused on simply trying to get home in one piece. There was a shortcut through the woods they could have taken, but this way was much safer, and neither of them particularly wanted to hurry back.

"Dad? Mom said you were going away tomorrow. She said you were going to the Citadel."

Tadosh squirmed uncomfortably. He knew he had to say something sooner or later, yet somehow he had foolish clung onto the hope that if he ignored it, eventually it would just go away. In an instant his tone became solemn and paternal. "Yes son, your mother was right. I need to leave for the Citadel early in the morning. I'll be gone before you even wake up."

A painful pause preceded the question that Tadosh knew was coming. "Why though?"

"The Emperor has summoned all his magistrates to the Citadel; and no man, especially not me, would dare fail the Emperor in his summons."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Two weeks – maybe _three_ if His Majesty is feeling pedantic," Tadosh added with an especially fierce rolling of the eyes. He tossed his words around in his mouth for a minute as he tried to decide how best to explain those things which few children were old enough to understand. "You see, the Empire is facing a lot of problems right now, son. It's my job to help come up with ways to fix them."

"What kind of problems?"

Tadosh hesitated, wisely catching himself before he could continue. "Many."

"Can you fix them though?"

"I am bound to at least try, I suppose," he said with a heavy, burdened shrug. "They didn't go through all the trouble of making your father a governor just so he could sit back and relax all day, now did they? No, they made me a governor so I could help His Majesty fix things when they go wrong. Ah, but here we are! Home."

The house lay in the same spot and the same manner as it always did; a dependable point of consistency in an otherwise interminably identical canvass of nature. From their angle at the bottom of the hill its high walls and ornamented colonnades caused it to look like a sprawling, regal fortress, perched stoically above the land. Many miles away to the south the audacious, garish lights of the city seemed to blur and meld together as one, forming an ambiguous smudge of neon which could just as easily have been mistaken for a sun.

Whenever he gazed out in that direction some part of Tadosh always reminded himself that living in enormous, opulent mansions like while the common people languored in such cramped, over-dense cities these was one of the main reasons why the Imperial nobility had garnered enough widespread resentment and hatred to inspire revolt in the first place. Another, much more pragmatic part reminded him that he wasn't supposed to particularly care; the result of this mental battle was a somewhat unhealthy combination of aloof arrogance and unacknowledged self-loathing, coupled with perhaps a trace of condescension to his peers.

The duo continued to press on up the hill; Tadosh's tired, sluggish strides contrastingly sharply with his son's buoyant, energetic bouncing. The weather had begun to take a sour turn; the wind had a bit more of a bite to it now, and the first rumblings of a storm were clearly audible. Tadosh pulled his coat tighter around his frame and quickened his pace. He observed apprehensively that a light appeared to be on in the main foyer. "We'd better hurry up and get inside, N'resh. The sky looks bad and I think your mother might still be awake."

With clandestine tread the two stole into the house, their every movement slow, calculated, and exaggerated. The huge, uncontrollable grins on the pair's faces unmasked the childish comedy of their quest. Nearby in the adjoining living-room the mother sat unawares, calmly reading her book by the light of her lamp. N'resh and his father silently pressed themselves as flat as they could against the wall, their poses as rigid and inanimate as the engravings which decorated the Imperial tombs. Tadosh pressed his lips to his son's ear. "On three, okay?"

N'resh's head bobbled up and down. "Got it. Then we shoot her, right?"

"Right. Okay...one…two…three!"

One the cue they leaped out from behind the wall, battle cries ringing to the heavens, their fingers leveled like guns at their target's head. Before they could so much as speak their quarry had already rounded upon them, her simmering anger swiftly extinguishing any lingering expectations of clemency; even so, when she at last spoke her voiced was charged more with worry than with fury. "Where have you two _been_! It's practically morning!"

The smiles instantly dropped off of their faces, replaced instead by expressions of uneasy trepidation. N'resh chuckled weakly. "…bang?"

Tadosh knew enough not to fight back as he was half-led, half-dragged back out of the room by his wife. With a stiff wave of her hand she silenced Tadosh's excuses, pressing inexorably onward with her inquisition. "What took you so long?"

"We were running around down by the lake. I guess I lost track of time."

"That much I could figure for myself"

"Darria, I'm-"

Darria coldly waved down his apologies. "Zip it." She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small white envelope. "I found these shuttle tickets lying out on your desk…did you plan on telling me you were going to the Citadel?"

"I only just found out. The Emperor has summoned his officers to Council."

Darria's steely demeanor quickly melted into genuine concern. She reflexively drew closer. "Have things become so bad?"

Tadosh sighed, pensively running his fingers along the length of his finely kept tentacles which fell from his chin. "Worse, even. There was another string of attacks in Ultmire province. And now entire worlds are dropping out of communications with the Citadel. The whole Empire is burning," he spat bitterly.

"Are they in revolt?" Darria whispered.

"We don't know yet. But let's hope we will soon."

For a tense moment no words passed between them; only a foreboding and unwelcome silence in which the darkest possible explanations were left to play out uninhibited in their minds. Tadosh gingerly pried the envelope from his wife's fingers. "My shuttle is leaving in just a few hours. I'll need to get going now if I plan on getting there in time."

Darria took a deep breath and managed to compose herself. "Right. You head on out. We'll call you later tomorrow."

Tadosh smiled reassuringly. "Of course – I'll be waiting for it."

N'resh knew what was coming before his mother even opened her mouth. "I know, I know," he said dramatically. "Time for bed."

Tadosh looked on tenderly as his son trudged up the stairs. Two decades of cutthroat government and playing the political game inevitably left one with a certain sense of detachment to emotions and semantics, both good and bad; Tadosh doubted he could even remember all of those whose careers he had been forced to cut down in order to further his own. He had tried first to justify it, then to deny it. Now, he merely accepted it without thought. The childish antics of his son, however, still seemed to strike a chord with him somewhere. He grinned and raised a hand in farewell. "Goodbye guys. I'll see you in a couple of weeks."

N'resh returned the wave emphatically. "Bye Dad! Have fun on the Citadel!"

Tadosh rolled his eyes and laughed bitterly. "You can count on it."


	2. Chapter 1: Strange Portents

**Chapter 1**

Tadosh had long ago lost count of the number of times he had visited the Citadel, and still each time he did so he found himself subtly awed by its sheer size and magnitude. He often wondered if it had been built that way on purpose; just as much an edifice as a utility, designed to ensure that no creature passed under its shadow without knowing immediately that _this_ was where power had made its home. The ancient planetary homeworld of the Protheans had long ago been discarded; it had become little more than a token of history, a cradle from which the nascent Prothean Empire had sprung onto the stage. Prothean xenologists had no answers as to what godlike race must have first built the ancient edifice – or indeed for what purpose it had been constructed – but millennia of unimpeded Prothean investment and development had transformed it into the irreplaceable heart of galactic civilization. All politics, economics, and travel within the Empire inevitably wound its way back to here; and depending on whom you were and who you knew the Citadel was alternatively either the safest or most dangerous place to be in the entire Empire.

The grounds of the Administrative Spire were, by design, better arranged and maintained than the public parks which dotted the residential districts, and Tadosh never even noticed his pace slowly grinding to a tread as he made his way to Council. Exotic trees and foliage, much of it doubtless imported from distant colonies, seemed to stretch and grow to almost supernatural size, masking the metallic walls of the station with their excess. This, Tadosh had decided, was the true purpose of the Emperor's lavish parks gardens; they were little more than an ostentatious masque, used to alternatively distract or hide that which did not fit in with the image that had been created.

"Tadosh? Tadosh V'tun, is that _you_!"

Tadosh was snapped physically from his thoughts, his head jerking backwards as if yanked. To his bewilderment he realized that he must have stopped walking altogether; he wondered for how long he must have been standing there frozen. A hurried scan of his surroundings quickly illuminated the source of the disturbance; none other than his long-time friend, the Governor of Hjaspraud. Tadosh's irritated visage quickly melted into one of relaxed familiarity. "Ashdod Gamaliel, I presume?" he grinned, and the two embraced as if no time at all had passed between them.

"I see the air on Chasca has worked wonders on you," Ashdod croaked, scanning his friend with a sweeping gaze. "You've hardly changed a bit."

Tadosh laughed. "Appearances can be deceiving, my old friend; my back has been as temperamental as an insurrectionist these past few years. You're still looking rather spry yourself," he offered.

Ashdod snorted and waved his companion down. "Oh come now, no lies amongst friends. You can tell me truth; I hear it enough from my wife already."

Tadosh grinned sardonically. "What do you say we both just go ahead and admit that we're lying?" he chuckled. "And that we both, quite frankly, look completely terrible."

His friend broke into a fit of wheezy laughter, which was stemmed only after great effort on his part. "Fair enough. I'll drink to that, when I get the chance."

Ashdod met Tadosh's eyes with his own, and a moment passed in which he seemed to take a full and measured accounting of his old friend; like he was searching for something that he had seen once, and wanted to make sure that it was still there. The subtle nod of his head suggested he had found it. "Walk with me for a minute, would you? We have some time before we need to be at Council, after all, and there are many things to discuss."

"Lead on, my friend," Tadosh agreed, a small bow of the head masking the subtle flash of disquiet which swept across his face. Ordinarily, the prospect of a walk through the gardens would not have been a cause for consternation or foreboding. Enough sessions of the Imperial Council had passed within Tadosh's life, however, that he knew too well the ways in which its convention flamed the latent fires of intrigue and ambition. He could not help but suspect that this would not simply be an occasion of leisure.

Ashdod did indeed lead on, the pair drifting freely through the abundant natural beauty of the gardens. There were many eventful years that had been lost and little time in which to make good on them, but to true friends time is but a trivial concern. The two might have never been parted at all for how seamlessly they came together again, the course of their words and emotions flowing as freely as the crystalline lakes over which they roamed.

"How are things with the estate?" Tadosh asked as they rounded a particularly regal-looking pair of trees. "Last I had heard you were planning on expanding a little – did that ever go through?"

"Well we _did_ get around to expanding," Ashdod began solemnly, "but I'm afraid we haven't been living on Binthu at all for the past few months. My security staff concluded that there was an imminent risk of insurgent attacks – we haven't had anything yet, but it's still too risky for us to return for the time being…"

This revelation seemed to give Tadosh a palpable shock. "The insurgents must be growing stronger than I thought if even _capitol_ worlds aren't safe anymore."

"It's not the rebels' strength that has led us to this," Ashdod spat through gritted teeth. "It's the Empire's _weakness_; or, more specifically, the _Emperor's_."

Tadosh willed his face to remain impassive, but inwardly he permitted himself a sigh of resignation. His sixth sense had once again proven to be dead on; nothing, not even something as simple and innocuous as a walk was left unadulterated by the long, insidious shadow of power. If this was the true reason for their outing then Tadosh figured he may as well unravel it quickly. "You would place the onus of these disasters on the Emperor?" he inquired, forcing his tone to remain as aloof and uninterested as possible.

"There can be no one else to blame," Ashdod warbled sinisterly, head shaking back and forth in a gesture of boundless contempt. "This "Emperor" of ours is like a pernicious cancer which preys upon our realm; his foulness infests the very heart of our government, ensnaring the whole of the Empire in a web of atrophy."

Ashdod's vicious attack on his Imperial patron was uncharacteristically dark, especially when he had built his entire reputation as a statesman upon his blind loyalty and unabashed patriotism. His friend's evident turn of face awoke in Tadosh a latent sense of foreboding; he subtly but decisively began to steer their course out of the gardens and toward the Council. "I would have never guessed to hear such thoughts from someone like you, Ashdod."

Abruptly the two came to a stop, Ashdod's brittle limbs seizing upon his friend's shoulders with surprising force. For the second time that day the two found their gazes locked intensely together. "The Emperor whose carcass now rots upon Protheus' throne is _not_ the same man that I swore my fealty to," Ashdod insisted. "His Majesty had changed – regressed – he no longer attends to the affairs of the Empire but instead _retreats_ into isolation and obscurity, leaving his country to languor for his absence. Every request for action is denied – every plea for intervention goes unheard. The ministers of Council talk and debate and bargain but their words are but empty noise carried upon the wind! The insurgents will pray upon a _thousand_ worlds before His Majesty can be convinced to so much as acknowledge the crisis!"

This second round of accusations stuck uncomfortably in Tadosh's intuition; partially because they sounded so alien and unnatural coming from his friend's mouth, but mainly he knew because they contained many slivers of unavoidable truth. The Imperial bureaucracy, always famous for its inefficiency, had slowed to a near stop within the past year. Tadosh had good reason to believe that none of the ten-plus requests he had made to the Naval Chancellery for additional forces had ever even come up for consideration. He knew that he had been extremely fortunate thus far; insurgent attacks within his province tended to be uncommon and poorly executed – nothing that his existing forces couldn't handle. Further towards the frontier, the picture painted was much darker; audacious raids on foundry worlds, high-profile terrorist attacks, and even a few suspected assassinations. Amidst all this, Tadosh realized, the Imperial Guard Fleet sat inert and unused at home on the Citadel, billions of tax credits being wasted on little more than a glorified armada of parade floats.

"I don not deny that our Empire is in trouble, my friend" Tadosh cautiously relented. "But to accuse our Emperor of being a base traitor is a weighty accusation. Supposition and hearsay cannot be taken on its own merit."

The heat of their discussion caused all sense of time to melt away, and Tadosh was startled to find that they had evidently found their way back into the main hallway of the Administrative Spire. From all sides a veritable sea of magistrates and officials emerged and began to flow seamlessly around them, traveling mindlessly onwards in a single, amorphous unit towards the familiar clang of the conciliar bells. Ashdod pulled Tadosh close and dropped his voice to a low whisper as they resumed walking. "All which has been said that seems unbelievable you shall soon witness for yourself. Quickly, the final call is given."

Tadosh had always found the Assembly Hall to possess a certain spartan beauty; its bare walls, simple geometry, and high-vaulted ceiling invoked that long legacy of stoic sacrifice and civic duty which had enabled the Empire to become so great. In this room, at least, all men sat in equal standing, both in practice and in ideology. It was one of the few places in the Empire where a man knew he was free to speak his mind; no magistrate could be arrested or imprisoned for the words he spoke here and all opinions, regardless of their merits and their palatability, would be given due and careful consideration. It was by far the most visible reminder of the sacred compact which existed between the Emperor and his subjects.

Seating in the Assembly Hall was provided through a series of concentric, semi-circular benches which enveloped the Imperial Throne in the center. All this was, again, done with a purpose in mind; everybody faced one another, and it was impossible to hide or avoid being seen. Tadosh took to his typical seat near the middle, stifling a pained groan as the metal seat immediately disagreed with his back. _For all the work they put into symbolism and semantics you would think they might be able to cushion the damn benches_, he cursed. He craned his neck and tried to make a quick scan of the crowd. The general atmosphere of the day was clearly one of apprehension. The usual chatter and small-talk which characterized the convention of Council were conspicuously absent on this day, replaced by hushed whispering and tense murmurs. The anxiety in the room seemed so dense that to merely sneeze might ignite a panic. Tadosh turned to one of his fellows, a wizened-looking magistrate with a brilliant, flowing beard.

"Everybody seems so tense – it's like we're at a funeral or something. What province do you represent?" Tadosh asked on a whim

The governor wrung his hands nervously in his lap and looked quickly away; it appeared that engaging in small-talk was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. "Gahtrog," he shot back. "I'm the governor of Gahtrog Province," he said again, as if he needed to force himself to believe it.

Tadosh did his best to overlook this quirky behavior and carry on. "How's the insurgency in your province?"

The governor suddenly became unnaturally rigid; when he spoke he did so like a VI, mechanical and emotionless, his eyes fixed on some distant point on the wall. "There were over fifty attacks total in the last week. Two planets dropped entirely out of communication yesterday – one of them was an agricultural world. The scout frigate we sent to investigate has not returned yet."

Tadosh was still trying to formulate a response to his deranged colleague when, with an explosive fanfare of trumpets and drums, the Emperor at last arrived to Council. His imperial garb and regalia, ridiculous to anyone who saw it for the first time, now almost seemed to reassure the assembled councilors with the authority and power it exuded; at once they all leaped to their feet, turning impulsively to him as a child might turn to his father.

"Please, friends," the Emperor proclaimed in his customarily booming voice. "Be seated."

Tadosh did as he was asked; more convinced now than ever that Ashdod's earlier ranting had no basis. The same confidence and charisma that had first inspired Tadosh to become a politician in the first place was still present in their Emperor. He cast a smug glance over at his friend, whose weather-beaten face still betrayed nothing.

"By my authority as the invested Emperor, I hereby call this session of Council to order." With a theatrical flourish the Emperor twirled his scepter and clapped it once upon the immaculate marble of the dais.

The councilors quickly sprang up once more, their heads cast back in adulation. "All hail His Majesty, the Emperor Hadrius. Emperor Hadrius, all hail!"

The Emperor reclined in his ornate throne, his head resting lazily on his palm; whether his disinterest stemmed from modesty or from familiarity it was difficult to say. "I pray you, be seated again. As is our custom, I believe that the Imperial Chancellor is to start off our meeting?" He said, looking expectantly toward a particularly frail and diminutive member of the Council.

A collective groan shot through the minds of all those present; doubtless even the Emperor's. Ulash W'tee, the incumbent Imperial Chancellor for the past fifty-five and a half years, was infamous for his wheezy, pained, and gaited manner of speaking. No genuine slight could be made upon his character or intelligence – indeed; his remarks were unfailingly among the wisest and most reasoned given during sessions of Council – but to listen to his rhetoric for longer than five minutes required boundless mental fortitude and, even with that, a very impressive capacity for patience.

"Thank you Your Grace," Ulash returned through labored breaths. He took a moment to clear his throat, not because it would do any real good, but more as a way of warning his compatriots to steel themselves.

"A meeting of Council is called to discuss _all_ the affairs of the Empire, but I am confidant that I am correct in saying that _this_ Council is intimately concerned with the ongoing insurgencies which eat away at every province and excharchate across the realm. The gravity of this crisis cannot be overstated. The Imperial Office of Records has concluded that, on average, over one-thousand insurgent attacks occur daily. The total financial damage has been calculated to be in excess of thirty-billion credits, and rising. And now, at the absolute wane of Imperial authority, entire worlds are dropping out of communication. If these trends are not reversed, then I strongly believe it is only a matter of time until our country consumes itself in the flames of violence and war."

"The bandying of words is _not_ enough!" An elderly councilor cried, rising to his feet with the help of a cane and several colleagues. Malice and frustration emanated from him like an aura, and he leveled his gnarled finger at the Emperor with unexpected force. "Imperial citizen are dying in the thousands and still nothing is accomplished!" he accused, voice wracked with raw agony. "Our soldiers sit dormant at their posts; our ships are made to parade endlessly about on exercises and exhibitions! War is not on the horizon, councilors, war is _upon_ us already – and we are _losing_!"

"You make quite liberal use of hyperbole, councilor," the Emperor shot back airily. "These insurgents are but flies gnawing on a mighty predator – in time they will grow tired and move along, as they must." He picked determinedly at a fingernail; the gesture better expressing his contempt than any words could.

"Your Majesty, these are not simple lay-pirates who make a fortune off our shipping and then retire," another councilor objected. "These are fanatical zealots who desire nothing less than the destruction of our government."

"The governor from Zhul is exactly right!" a third councilor interjected. "These insurgents have no plan – no strategy. Even our most advanced VI's have failed to pinpoint any pattern to their attacks and activity. It is…bizarre," he said, switching from righteous anger to utter bewilderment. "Their attacks are completely spontaneous – it's as if they just randomly decide that they're going to attack us. Few insurgents that we've captured could be pacified into talking with us – the others simply fought us to the death, no matter the circumstance."

"That is not all," came the voice of another councilor from the back rows. "A few of the insurgents we've captured claimed to have no recollection of their actions at all. We know that the insurgents operate through sleeper cells and deep-cover agents, but if they're somehow conditioning ordinary civilians to attack upon a given signal–"

"No technology that sophisticated exists," the Emperor dismissed with a patronizing laugh. "These are men, and they will grow disheartened and give up as all men who fail must eventually do."

The burning pit of uncertainty which had been growing in Tadosh's stomach could no longer be avoided. The Emperor was the same in body and mannerism as he had always been, it was true; his robes rested upon him no differently now than they ever had. The person inside the body, however, seemed fundamentally different, deflecting criticisms and stifling dissent without so much as a second thought. This was intrinsically opposed to everything that Council was about; the Emperor called Council in order to listen to his advisers, not to turn them away. However this Emperor sitting before them was, he was not the great Hadrius who put down Ypur's Rebellion, reigned-in the powers of the nobles, and thrice purged the Imperial eunuchary.

"-but apparently our noble Governor of Fhaldric thinks himself too _important_ to listen to the opinions of his Emperor…"

Tadosh knew immediately that all eyes in the room were glued to him, and the moment that it took him to raise his head passed in slow, aching seconds. The Emperor leaned forward triumphantly on his throne, his weight balanced on his scepter. "Are you so flippant in your duties that you feel empowered to _nap_ in the presence of Council?" His tone was even, but each word practically dripped with hidden malice.

"I…no, Your Majesty, I was merely distracted-"

"You do not care for the welfare on the Empire?"

"No – I mean yes, I do! I had a long flight-"

The Emperor smirked and reclined victoriously. "Councilor, know that your disregard for your duties and for this Empire have been well-noted by this assembly and by myself."

Tadosh figured it best to cut his losses and run. "Of course, Your Majesty. I beg your pardon for my negligence." A few moments of silence passed, with the heat and inertia of the debate now stopped.

"Your Majesty," a councilor piped up at last. "Back to the questions of the militia…"

The rest of Council passed by in a daze for Tadosh; he played the part, keeping his head up and his demeanor attentive, but he was no longer truly listening. His thoughts instead drifted to what Ashdod had said, about how the Emperor had changed. If it was true – and it seemed that it may very well be, then the throne was now occupied by a madman and a traitor; and Tadosh had made the most fatal mistake an Imperial politician could make by the far: he had personally angered the Emperor. He shot a look at his omni-tool; just a few minutes to go until Council adjourned for the day.

"Mr. V'tun?"

Tadosh looked over his shoulder to find a small, scribbled note being shoved into his face. The courier bowed politely and took a step back. "From Mr. Ashdod Gamaliel," he explained, vanishing back across the isle before Tadosh could even think of any questions to ask. Not wanting to draw the ire of the Emperor any further, he quickly brought the note up to his face.

"_Meet me for lunch in a few minutes? I imagine we have a lot to talk about."_

From across the hall Ashdod waved to his friend and gave a tiny wink.


	3. Chapter 2: Discoveries

A/N: Just wanted to throw out a quick 'thank you' to anybody who reads my story. Whether you choose to leave a review or not, your support is still very much appreciated regardless!

In this installment, we shall meet the second of the story's two protagonists

* * *

**Chapter 2**

When an aspiring politician first entered into the interminable labyrinth of Imperial bureaucracy as a Junior Administrator, it was the standard precedent to assign them the jobs that had been deemed too dull or too mundane for high-ranking magistrates. These "bottom of the barrel" commissions could take on many different forms; ranging from simply tedious to outright intolerable, and everywhere in between. On the whole it was agreed that the worst you could possibly get was an assignment which either had no specific expiration date, or provided no payment until the commission was completed. Dertek V'tun was unlucky enough to get both.

"Shuttle is docking with Orbital Station 03 at this time," the automated voice buzzed with its inhuman pleasantry, finally ending over two and half hours of furious silence. "Please clear the shuttle doors and prepare to disembark with the station."

Dertek shot the overhead speaker a murderous look in a vain attempt to silence it; he resorted instead to looking pensively out the side window. From here he could behold the research station in its full glory – or lack thereof. The dull steel chassis, grimy windows, and compact size seemed pathetic and unworthy to one who had set foot upon the Citadel. Dertek felt another surge of anger as his thoughts drifted back to his classmates from the Academy. Some of them were off on _real_ assignments; chairing committees, directing colonies – in short, the things that _he_ was qualified to be going.; but instead he was here, orbiting some backwater frontier world so he could help them dig up a couple of worthless old relics. Dertek's whole body sat as rigid and tense as a statue, his knuckles practically turning white from clenching them so hard for the past hour. He impulsively vaulted himself up and, with as much contempt as he could possibly muster, spat a thick, bloody wad of phlegm onto the floor of the shuttle. His hand jerked to his mouth in shock as he beheld the crimson smear with a start. "My blood?" he blurted stupidly. "How hard was I grinding my teeth?"

A high-pitched beep rang through the cabin, and before Dertek had even figured out what was going on the station airlock hissed and slid open, bringing him face-to-face with a garrulous welcome-wagon of personnel. He counted the seconds as he watched their eyes travel from his face, down to the lump on the floor, and slowly back up again. In seconds their faces slipped from excitement, to confusion, to and finally to a strange mixture of shock, revulsion, and comprehension. Dertek grinned weakly and waved a hand, staunchly determined to proceed as if nothing had happened. "Er…hi there. I'm the new overseer from the Academy. I, uh, presume you were expecting me, yes?"

"We were indeed," came the response as a particularly dour-looking member of the group stepped forward. A tense second passed, in which the researcher seemed to evaluate his new colleague from behind his rounded spectacles, peering intensely up and down Dertek's body as if he were just another specimen brought in for a vivisection. At last his grimace broke, replaced by a massive grin that barely seemed to fit securely on his face. "A pleasure to be working with you." He grasped at Dertek's hand with both of his. "I'm Doctor Zhor Gavrom, the Chief Archaeologist for this project; and you are Mr. V'tun, are you not? Tadosh V'tun, was that it?"

Dertek forced himself to swallow down another wave of anger, although he couldn't really blame the man for his confusion. "I think you're getting a little bit mixed up, _sir_," Dertek said, trying and failing to keep his voice on an even keel. "Tadosh V'tun is my uncle, the honorable Governor of Fhaldric. I'm afraid I am actually his less famous – but no less capable – nephew."

That last part was especially important to him. Dertek had never quite gotten over the social stigma of growing up as nephew to the renowned Governor V'tun; it still scarred him long after he claimed to have put it behind him. People saw the name 'V'tun' and seemed to immediately associate it with persons of the highest possible echelons of virtue and character. Everything that Dertek said and did had to be superior; his failures, not his successes, were identified and remembered. At first he had hated being pushed all the time. After a while, he learned to just live with it; eventually, he came to _enjoy_ it. He _was _better than his peers, and he had proved it time and time again in every possible way.

This new development seemed to come as a surprise Zhor; and his face fell a little as he slowly recognized the difference. "I see then. Well," he resumed cautiously, "we were sort of expecting that the honorable Councilor would be here to oversee the rest of our operation…"

Dertek's already drained patience began to wear perilously thin. He folded his arms and drew himself up to his full height, causing him to tower over his comrade. "Well it looks like _I'm_ here instead, doctor – will that be a problem? The _Academy_ certainly didn't seem to think so…" he finished, leaving the threat of Imperial reprisal dangling ominously out in the open.

Zhor took a sizeable step backward, hastily throwing up his hands in defense. "Mr. V'tun, I certainly did not intend to question your capabilities – not at all. However," he continued as he began to regain some of his business like tone, "this is an extremely critical excavation we are working on here. You must forgive me if we perhaps expected a more…_senior_ functionary to be given this assignment."

_Now we're finally getting to heart of this thing_, Dertek determined. To his disdain, the answers he was getting had only raised a new set of questions. "Backtrack with me for a second, would you doctor? When I was given the dossier for this commission, they told me your team was just digging up some ruins."

Zhor nodded and gave Dertek a theatrical wink. "We _were_ 'just digging up some ruins', Mr. V'tun; and last week, we _finally_ found what we were looking for – which, it turns out, is much more than just another old tomb or some fossils." Zhor abruptly seemed to discover, to his amusement, that their conversation had transpired entirely within the station's airlock. He laughed and cast his hand in an arc cross the chamber. "But this is no place for us to be having this discussion, Mr. V'tun! If you would be so kind as to follow me?"

Dertek walked briskly at Zhor's side, trying his best to keep up with the historian's unforeseen speed. Their pace didn't leave much time for casual observation, but Dertek was already noticing how well-kept the interior seemed compared to the outside; although, whether this disparity in condition actually existed or whether it was just his mind showing him what he wanted to see, he couldn't really tell.

Eventually their route took them past a colossal observation window overlooking the planet below. Zhor slowed their pace down a little and pointed at the view as they passed by. "Have you ever seen Paeon in person before? It's really quite breathtaking."

Dertek had to admit that it was indeed an impressive sight. He had known the basics about Paeon before he arrived, of course. It was an abundantly green and verdant world, with an extra-dense atmosphere which left most of the surface terribly humid and covered in an endless blanket of thick, serpentine tropical jungles. The gravity was fairly standard, the air was rich in carbon and oxygen, and bio-diversity was exceptionally high – the only obstacle preventing large-scale colonization was the lack of clear space and an unfortunate propensity towards aggressive and poisonous life forms. From out in space the planet looked almost like a giant green ball of yarn – or maybe just weeds – with only the rare spot of yellow or brown to suggest that the jungles were being resisted.

"My dossier said that this world has colonies already," Dertek said as more of a question than an assertion. "Do you have any idea what the population is?"

"We only have the official census estimate to go by," Zhor admitted, returning to his original speed now that they had cleared the observation deck. "It's somewhere between twenty and thirty-thousand people in total. We don't know of any major settlements though; they're all spread out in subsistence farms that have been cleared by hand. Our main digging team has been using one of the villages to re-supply," he explained, "but these people don't exactly have a lot to give up. Their generosity has been welcome nonetheless."

The inside of the station was proving to be larger than Dertek had originally thought, and he was beginning to feel genuinely fatigued by the time they reached their apparent destination. Above another set of vacuum-sealed doors the words "Mission Control" had been etched in big, blocky script. The armed soldier standing guard by the door seemed especially out of place here on a non-combatant research station, but by this point Dertek had decided it best to simply drop all presumptions and wait to be told more.

Zhor exchanged a quick salute with his guard. "This guy is with me. Tell Security to write him in for full access to the station records – name 'Dertek V'tun'. That'll be all, soldier. Right inside, if you please."

The station's central command center was already cramped to begin with, and the dozens of researchers, technicians, and engineers all trying to force their way in at once only exacerbated the matter. Dertek collided with one of the scientists and shoved him away angrily, his good humor having been ground down to the nub. The most striking thing about the setup here was that nothing seemed to strike him at all; in terms of design and layout the room was nothing that hadn't been seen on a million different ships and stations before. Several rows of flickering orange computer terminals gave the lighting in the room a strange, almost strobe-like effect. Wondering now if he was going to have a seizure he squinted and redoubled his efforts to catch up to Dr. Gavrom, who had nimbly maneuvered the party down to a dais in the middle of the chamber. A holographic projector had been mounted squarely in the middle, displaying a grainy image of Paeon which seemed to rotate around at surprising velocity.

Zhor tapped out a few quick keystrokes at his terminal, and the holographic image of Paeon seemed to jerk violently and then freeze in place. "Ah, very good!" Zhor nodded. "Now if we can just zoom in a little here…"

The hologram abruptly flickered off and then reappeared, this time displaying what appeared to be a top-down view of a small section of the planet's surface. Zhor withdrew from his terminal and began to pace slowly around the projector. "Now that you are here I suppose that we should fill you in on the whole story," he began with a sigh.

"I read the dossier," Dertek cut in quickly.

"The dossier that you were given by the Academy is inaccurate," Zhor retorted. "Or, well, it _was_ accurate at one point but I'm afraid that the relative scope of what we are attempting to do here has changed."

"I don't understand," Dertek said a little impatiently. "_What_ happened?"

The doctor grinned excitedly at his colleague's confusion. "We started digging, like we were told. And eventually, our digging turned up something quite extraordinary."

He tapped a button at his terminal, and several markers seemed to flicker on the hologram. "At one time we had five different dig-sites; they've all been combined into one at this point. Eighth days ago," he began, finally sensing Dertek's frustration, "our team at Dig Site Three unearthed a large plate of metal, curved like the hull of a starship. The alloys used to fashion it are unknown to us, and it resisted all attempts at adulteration."

Zhor began his frenzied pacing again. "Further excavation revealed that the buried artifact at Dig Site Three actually _was_ a starship; and it was unlike anything we could have imagined. Initial estimates from on the ground placed the ship's length at two-hundred meters – large by any measure, of course. Imagine our surprise when the ship's length kept going at four-hundred meters, then at eight-hundred! When we finally uncovered the entirety of the ship three days ago, the length was placed at just under a _mile_ long."

Dertek bobbled his head automatically and tried to grin, the scientific magnitude of this discovery apparently lost on him. "Oh…well then," he said uncomfortably. "I don't-"

"And that's not all!" Zhor interjected excitedly, his enthusiasm proving to be indefatigable. "Our teams finished performing formal lab dating on the ship; and if our results are to be believed, the ship that we have unearthed must be at _least_ five billion years old."

_This_ seemed to elicit a reaction from Dertek; he shook his head back and forth in silence, as if this new piece of information was too much for him to comprehend at once. After a few moments of trying, he managed to find his voice. "That's insane!" he retorted, his gaze darting back and forth between Zhor and the hologram. "No way – who could have built a ship like that five billion years ago?" he demanded.

Zhor smiled pompously and raised a single finger in response. "That was a question which we were afraid would never be answered. It seems, however, that our archaeologists on the ground have delivered yet again."

Zhor began walking again and signaled for Dertek to follow. "We received a message from our digging teams yesterday, claiming that they had found important information about the origin and function of the artifact. Unfortunately, we have been unable to re-establish a communications link with their camp; we think that the planet's atmosphere must be interfering with our signals. That," Zhor said pointedly, "is where you come in."

Dertek willed himself not to groan, but it was a genuine challenge. "Do I?" he muttered, chewing disdainfully on his words as they left his mouth. "How so?"

"You and I are going to take a team of scientists down to the surface," Zhor explained, already making his way over to the shuttle bay. "We'll meet up with our digging team and help them perform some more advanced analysis on the artifact – and while we're there, hopefully find out what it is they wanted to tell us."

* * *

Shuttle rides were already boring enough in Dertek's mind; knowing that he was riding a shuttle down to a humid, tropical jungle planet only made things worse. He spent most of the descent casting long, furtive glances at the planet surface as the jungle rose higher and higher to meet them. Not that he could see much of the surface anyway; Paeon's atmosphere was so thick that it practically obscured the entire planet under its opaque cloud. Eventually he gave up at trying to peer through the fog and resorted to sprawling himself inanimately in his seat. "I hope this shuttle is equipped to land right in the middle of the jungle. Most that I've flown in wouldn't be able to handle the impact."

"Oh, it can't," Zhor assured him cheerfully. "We're going to need to land in a clearing and then walk a few miles to the camp – hope that's okay."

The rapid stream of despondent curses which spewed forth from Dertek's mouth were masked only by the timely popping of the shuttle's heat shield as they forced their way through the atmosphere and down toward the ground below. This was, by far, one of the worst days that Dertek had ever suffered in his entire life; and that was actually saying something. Here he was, stranded on the absolute edge of Prothean space with no salary, no vacation leave, and nobody to talk with but a colorful cast of abrasive, bat-shit insane scientist sycophants. He balled up his fists so tightly that they're practically bled. "How _many_ miles, doctor?" he spat, as if he could somehow intimidate Zhor into landing the shuttle closer.

"Uh…two, maybe closer to three?" Zhor shrugged, appearing to be completely unconcerned with the prospect of walking two to three miles in tropical heat. "It won't take more than half an hour if we hustle," he added in a poorly judged attempt at reassurance.

"Shuttle is touching down at Korlietus settlement, population: three-hundred and seventy-eight," the intercom squawked, the VI comically placing emphasis on all the wrong words. "The exterior temperature is calculated at one-hundred and three standard degrees. Humidity level is high. Please prepare to disembark at this time."

Dertek disembarked himself reluctantly from the shuttle, a wave of heat and moisture rushing up to scald his face as he did so. The shuttle computer, it turned out, wasn't lying about the conditions. Now that he was on the surface, the sheer density of the atmosphere became much more apparent. It was like a heavy fog had rolled in, except in this case the fog was blistering hot and never left. Dertek figured that he could maybe see about four-hundred meters in every direction, at most. Overhead the effect was even stronger; the sky had been entirely replaced by a cover of clouds, which dispensed an eerie glow upon the surface that, if you lived there long enough, might eventually pass for sunlight. Only a few farmhouses were visible from where they stood, but Dertek could immediately pick out the massive air-conditioning units which engulfed their windows.

Zhor was the only one who seemed to observe that something was amiss. "How strange," he mumbled, talking as much to himself as to anyone else. "Something seems wrong here."

"Yeah, I know" Dertek panted, each breath of air feeling instead like a mouthful of water. "This planet is like a damn oven!"

"No, not that – I expected _that_," Zhor insisted, as oblivious as ever to the continual volleys of cynicism coming from his compatriot. "It's just that there's nobody here. The village looks deserted."

"Maybe they're all inside hiding from the heat," Dertek offered. "You know, like normal people."

Zhor shot this down with a shake of the head. "Not likely. There's no way that the villagers would waste their chance to take advantage of the cool weather – they'd almost certainly be outdoors working today." He turned and determinedly overlooked Dertek's disbelieving stare. "I just don't get it."

"Maybe we'll find out if we get going to the dig site," Dertek tried, not particularly bothering to draw a logical link between the two. The sooner he got this hike over with the better so far as he was concerned, and right now he wasn't in the mood to pull any punches.

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Zhor said unexpectedly. "Let's not waste any more time screwing around. I'll tell the others to move out too."

With varying degrees of enthusiasm and optimism, the party set off into the impenetrable undergrowth. The trail they were following was exceedingly narrow, and at times they were forced to spread out into single-file, each man holding onto the shoulders of those in front of him for support. Dertek could scarcely believe it but, in time, the conditions grew even worse. Their path began to cross over unconquered rivers and bubbling vats of mud. The ground on the whole became wetter and more slippery; more than one member of the team found themselves stepping unwittingly up to their knees in water. It was everything that Dertek imagined it would be and more. By the time they had traveled a mile his whole body had been so fully soaked in water, mud, and sweat that he doubted he even looked Prothean anymore. So focused was he on simply keeping his footing that they were more than halfway there before he realized that the man in front of him was carrying a gun.

"Wait a minute," he blurted suddenly, his patience for these new "discoveries" quickly running out. "What's the gun for? You plan on shooting us if we run, or what?"

The soldier grinned and hefted his gun a little in his hands. "Insurgents, sir. There's been some activity on this planet recently; we need to keep ourselves protected."

"Are you kidding me!" Dertek cried, torn between rage and sheer exasperation. He rounded viciously on his colleague. "Zhor you secretive _bastard_, why don't you just tell me the whole damn-"

Then, as if cued by some hack playwright, a single shot rang out. Dertek felt as if he were watching from a great distance as the metal slug flew through the air, the brilliant colors of its mass-effect field masking the mathematical lethality it delivered. He couldn't stop himself from grinning a little as the round flew in the most convoluted trail possible, passing over one man's head and through another's armpit until it finally came to a rather anti-climactic rest in the soldier's head.

"Insurgents! Shoot, shoot!"

Dertek watched the whole firefight from his position, pressed as low as he could possibly go into the mud, and water, and blood, and tears. He saw them leap out from behind the trees, pale as devils, cutting their enemies down before they could even figure out what was going on. Some of them, he saw, got hit and went down; some of them, but not most of them. One of his own soldiers dropped hard to the ground next to him, his rifle clattering and sprawling uselessly on the ground. Dertek wanted to yell to him, to tell him to get up and that it wasn't his fault because his enemies had cheated and they weren't normal anyway so he never could have won; but Dertek was too scared that he might be seen and so he kept quiet.

He had no idea how long he laid there for – it felt like an eternity but he knew that it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. He wanted to pretend that he was dead, that he wasn't there but somewhere, anywhere else; alas, his breathing betrayed him. Rough hands grabbed at his muddied shirt, pulling him upright by his nape. The rest of the scientists were still alive, he could see, but some looked like they had taken more of a beating than others. He looked over the expanse of fallen soldiers and hoped that one of them might still be alive somehow, ready to jump up and fight back as if he had never even been shot.

The unknown pair of hands returned, twisting Dertek around and bringing him face to face with his captor; a Prothean like any other, albeit a very tanned and grizzled one. The insurgent's eyes scanned his captive, quickly coming to rest on the unmistakable shape of an Administrator's badge. The insurgent grinned maliciously at the discovery.

"Ah-hah! What do we have here?"


	4. Chapter 3: A Conspiracy

**Chapter 3**

"And what do we have here?" Ashdod asked with theatrical flair, hungrily eying the menu's exquisite selection of entrées as he did so.

"That's the 'Sylsalto Special'," the waitress sighed as she became increasingly impatient with Ashdod's reluctance to pick something to eat. "It's basically just a light pasta dish with some meat sauce and garlic. Would you _like_ that, _sir_?" she demanded, making sound as if it was more of a threat than an inquiry.

"Why _yes_," Ashdod concluded, whipping his menu decisively closed for added effect. "Yes I think I would-"

"Fantastic!" the waitress blurted in a frantic attempt to stop the councilor from continuing. She lashed out and snatched the menus from their hands with heroic agility. "I'll be right back as soon as everything is ready."

Tadosh sighed and slouched down into his booth, reclining himself outward like one of the delinquent kids he always saw loitering around in the under-city cafes; of course, high-class, expensive restaurants like this one didn't typically attract the kind of clientele associated with trouble-making and delinquency, and being that they were on the Presidium Ring there wasn't really anything to see _but_ a couple high-class restaurants and the occasional gentleman's bar. On a typical day, spending lunchtime in such luxurious establishments with his friend would be a pleasant diversion; they might have talked about politics, philosophy, or art. Today, however, it just seemed to leave him feeling trapped, and he very much doubted that they would get a chance to talk about anything but the Emperor.

"The Imperial groundskeepers really do a fantastic job with the Presidium," Ashdod mused, casting a respectful glance at the scenery through their tiny porthole of a window. On the surface he appeared to be simply enjoying the sight, but a perceptive person would have noticed a hint of expectant searching behind those clouded eyes.

Tadosh had known his friend long enough to be able to tell when he was starting to drift into one of his typical interminable tangents. That Ashdod had something he wanted to say was perfectly obvious – getting him to say it without stopping and trailing off a million times along the way was something of a challenge. Inwardly Tadosh resolved to take as direct a route to the subject matter as possible. "That meeting of Council was unlike any other I can remember," he grumbled darkly. "You were onto something when you said that he was different; if I spent more time around the Citadel I might have noticed it earlier but…"

"You did notice it, though," Ashdod observed with a satisfied smile. "I was right, then, wasn't I? He wears a convincing mask, but whoever this foul tyrant is, he is not the Emperor Hadrius that we all know." The councilor returned his focus to the window again, his eyes subtly scanning back and forth. "I really love that new tree they put in – such fine coloring."

Tadosh sighed and smacked his palms against the table in exasperation. "Look Ashdod, before we went into Council you wouldn't shut up about the Emperor being a traitor and all the different ways he was different now; but here you just keep talking about the stupid Presidium gardens _which_, by the way, look no different now than they ever-"

Ashdod's eyes suddenly locked onto something outside the restaurant; he waved his hand impatiently for silence. "Ah good, they're right on time! Capital!" He turned to his friend and beamed. "I've invited some friends of mine to join us here. Given your newfound interest in the Emperor and his affairs I suspect you will be very pleased to make their acquaintance."

Tadosh felt a momentary surge of panic at the thought of events moving beyond his control, compelling him to make a rather pointless scan of the restaurant. "'Some friends' of yours? What the hell are you talking about?" he hissed angrily, leaning sharply forward across the table. Impatience and frustration practically radiated out from him as he locked eyes with his friend. "Look Ashdod, I thought you just wanted to grab a lunch or something," he growled. "And now for the second time today it turns you're really just trying to get me in on some sort of insane plot against the Emperor – which, I hasten to point out – is a _capital offense_."

The pleasant, airy tinkling of the doorbell announced the arrival of a new group, and before they had even made their way to the table Tadosh could peg the three men as the trouble-making sort. Their dress and mannerisms would have drawn attention to them anywhere, especially in the high-class neighborhoods of the Presidium. They conspicuously lacked the distinctive robes that denoted an Imperial councilor, donning instead in a shady-looking assortment of dark and loose-fitting clothing. The caps placed on their heads were spitting images of the kind used by district thieves to keep their hair out of their eyes while they worked; but most importantly of all were their eyes, which darted nimbly back and forth at a dizzying pace, as if they expected a confrontation at any moment.

If Ashdod was aware of the eccentricity of this trio, he certainly did a fantastic job of hiding it. He sprung to his feet and grinned, warmly embracing each man in turn. "Welcome, my dear friends, welcome! I apologize for this impromptu gathering, but I assure you your time will not be wasted." He swept a hand towards the booth. "Please, won't you sit down?"

The three men filed obediently into the booth and made a good show of making themselves comfortable, with all the stretching and yawning that accompanies an over-acted performance. Their eyes still betrayed to Tadosh the truth; they were alert and on-edge here, and didn't seem prepared to drop their guard. He glanced back at his friend, who stared excitedly at him as if to say _"well, what do you think?"_

Ashdod smiled and banged his hands on the table as if some sort of decision had been reached. "Well then, I suppose we should get introductions out of the way. Tadosh, this is Nydomo, Calpurnius, and Zilitar," he explained, pointing to each new arrival in turn. "And _this, _friends," he said with thespian flourish, "is my dear friend, Councilor Tadosh V'tun, the Governor of Fhaldric."

"So, uh…no last names, then?" Tadosh wondered as he drew a suspicious glance across members of the table. "Where are you all from? Are you Citadel-born?"

"Tadosh, my good man," Ashdod intervened before his friend could further pursue that line of questioning. "This is not the appropriate time to be treating our friends and allies with suspicion. If we are to achieve our goals we will need all the help we can possibly get. I've known these three men for a long time now. If I cannot trust them, then I cannot trust anybody."

The councilor threw up his hands, clearly nearing the end of his proverbial rope. "Okay look, cut the shit," he snapped with unusual tactlessness. "You keep moving ahead with this _plan_ or whatever, and I still don't know the first thing about what's going on!" He shot acidic looks to each person in turn, demanding an answer. "Well! What the hell are we trying to do here?"

"Our goal," Ashdod said, his voice suddenly taking on heavy inflections of gravity, "is nothing less than the removal of the false Emperor Hadrius; through whatever means necessary."

Tadosh had expected something along those lines, but to hear it was still a complete shock to him. He practically vaulted himself out of his seat, utterly disgusted and terrified by what he had allowed himself to be dragged into. "You are mad, all of you," he avowed coldly. "This Emperor may be ignorant, incompetent, or even _insane_, but that does _not_ mean that he deserves to die!" He swung around on his heels and began to stride away, his whole body trembling with indignation.

"What if we told you he was a traitor?"

Tadosh stopped dead in his tracks, as the very idea seemed to slither irresistibly into his brain and seize it, rooting him to the floor where he stood. _The Emperor, a traitor to his nation?_ No, surely it could not be! The Emperor Hadrius was no traitor; indeed, he was the _bane_ of traitors, having met with and defeated more than his fair share of them over the course of his long reign. Even at his worst he had never been known as anything less than a devoted patriot, always well intentioned in word and deed. How could it be possible that he would war against his own people? What could he possibly stand to gain by that?

Tadosh slowly pivoted back around to face the conspirators, his face as solemn and ashen as a funerary mask. "What do you mean?" he seethed, wishing all the while that he had the will to make himself keep moving again. _This is crazy – turn around and leave! Don't get caught up in all this!_ "What do you mean!" he demanded again, the silence of his fellows only driving him to question them further.

Ashdod sighed, the last traces of warmth and geniality disappearing from his face in a flash. All of his years suddenly seemed to bear upon him like a garment of lead. His gnarled, bony finger beckoned for his friend to return. "Please, Tadosh, sit. We shall explain all, as you have requested."

The councilor stormed warily back to the booth, his posture still looking as if he were prepared to bolt up at any moment. He gave each of the men a look as if to warn them that he was giving them one last chance. As he was accustomed to doing during the duller moments of Council, he folded his hands underneath his chin and waited restlessly. Seconds passed in aggravating silence. "So start talking," he growled.

Ashdod leaned forward, carrying his intensity and passion like a tangible force across the table with him. "My friend, you must believe me when I say that this is a point that I reach only in desperation. I have sought – desperately – every other possible explanation for the terrible tragedies and disasters which plague our Empire daily. But despite all my wishes to the contrary, I have finally accepted my conclusion as undeniable. The Emperor is a traitor to the Empire, and has brought arms against his countrymen – against us. We will not be safe until he has been toppled from his throne."

Tadosh leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a low whisper as if their treasonous plotting might be discovered at any moment. "You keep saying this, my friend, and yet you have failed to show me a single point of evidence!"

"All that is required is for us to connect the dots," Ashdod insisted, lowering his voice to match his friend's. "The first insurgent attacks were recorded just under a standard year ago, manifesting as occasional raids on passenger shuttles. Literally the _day_ before the first wave of attacks, the Emperor cut funding for the Imperial Navy by a staggering _twenty_ percent. Two hours before the attacks, the Emperor himself issued an order requisitioning the two cruisers that had been assigned to guard the shuttles – he _intentionally_ diverted those ships so that the insurgents could strike."

Tadosh rolled his eyes. "It was probably just an accident or a misunder-"

"Once or twice, I would maybe be willing to believe that," Ashdod relented. "But this type of _accident_ did not happen 'once or twice'. It happened over one-_thousand _times between the very first attacks and the present day. Just a few hours ago, the Emperor redirected an Imperial Guard fleet from planet Paeon back to the Citadel. Just an hour after they had re-based, the insurgents on the planet surface were reported as being on the move."

Tadosh seemed to physically start at the mention of the jungle planet; he only just avoided tipping over his drink. "Did you say 'Paeon'? I think my nephew was just transferred there today for a new commission."

Ashdod seemed genuinely concerned by this revelation. "Maybe you should give him a call? He might appreciate your interest."

Tadosh barked out a bitter noise which barely qualified as a laugh. "I very much doubt that. Dertek and I…do not get along."

"Even so," the other continued, wisely deciding to drop the matter, "His case perfectly represents what I am talking about. The Emperor constantly goes out of his way to leave openings for the insurgents to strike. The blood of _millions_ is on his hands by this point. This insurgency has clearly been engineered as a means of weakening the authority of the provinces."

Tadosh bobbled his head uncertainly. "This is a well-argued supposition," he acknowledged. "But you have not _proved_ anything, my friend."

Ashdod sighed as if he had been driven to a level that he had wished to avoid. He signaled with a subtle nod towards Calpurnius, who quickly began to fire up his omni-tool. "Over the past few months, I've been working very hard to pry some hard information out His Majesty's private computer network, "Calpurnius explained with a roguish grin. "It was proven resistant to my meddling, but it has on occasion been so kind as to yield me a few files here and there. This one, I think, is the most pertinent." He danced his fingers briefly on the screen and waited as the audio began to play.

"_You are advancing your plans then, yes? It is imperative that there be no further delays in our actions from here on out. I am facing mounting pressure from my supporters who expect me to deal with the 'insurgent problem'. I do not know for how much longer my position will be maintainable."_

"That's the Emperor, as you can probably tell," Calpurnius pointed out. "In just a minute we're going to hear from a member of the insurgency – maybe their leader, I don't know."

"_We are ready indeed, my lord. Our last round of bombings was an overall success, although some of your fleets proved to be a little too nosy for their own good. We won't be able to make much progress if you can't keep your forces sufficiently tied up; you know full well we don't have the staying power to do this for real."_

"_I am doing my best. I cannot drag my ships back and forth without at least providing some semblance of an excuse. I would argue that I am playing a much more difficult game than you are – trapped, as I am, in two diametrically opposed roles."_

"Listen carefully to this next one," Ashdod cut in. "The next voice, I mean. This one is a real mystery to us."

"_Your continued infighting is counter-intuitive to our shared goals. If this keeps up, then neither of you shall receive the result you are seeking after, and all will be for neight. Either your forces must act in unison, or we are doomed to fail before we have even begun."_

Tadosh had heard many different voices as a politician, ranging from the wheezy whisperings of half-dead statesmen to the sonorous, warbling bass tones of military strongmen; but never in all his years as a public servant had he ever heard a voice like that last one. It defied all attempts to categorize gender, age, or size. It did not even sound like a voice at all, more like the sound of clanging and echoing metal which happened to somehow come together and make words.

Ashdod grimaced and signaled for his colleague to close down the omni-tool. "You asked me to prove, beyond all doubt, the Emperor's treachery to you. Does this satisfy your request?"

Tadosh shook his head slowly back and forth, his mind still totally paralyzed by what he hard heard. "What was the last voice that played? It sounded like a machine, but it was different…sinister."

"Whatever it was, it is only further proof that the Emperor is trying to destroy his Empire. And all that once seemed natural and intrinsic has been shattered by his base villainy."

At that moment Tadosh felt that truer words had never been spoken. For as long as he had served the Empire he had never questioned his belief that the Empire would last for all of eternity, an unstoppable force which could know neither defeat nor stagnation. This new world which had been revealed to him – one in which all men bore daggers behind their backs and venom in their words – shook him more completely than anything else before. For the first time he truly felt as if the fate of the Empire was in doubt, and it rested upon him to help make the effort required to save it.

"Yes," Tadosh exhaled at last, his entire body sagging with exhaustion. "You have satisfied my doubts, friends." He locked eyes with each one of them in turn, trying to commit their faces to memory. "I admit I am terrified to see the face of reality, but I would mark it preferable to sleepwalking onward to an ignorant death."

"Well and truly spoken, my friend," Ashdod said kindly. "It is heartening to have someone of your wisdom and experience on-board with our cause."

The other men at the table smiled and nodded their agreement, sizing up their new comrade with steely gazes. Tadosh shook each of their hands one at a time; a needless gesture, all things considered, but it put his inherent need love for professionalism at ease to do things as formally as possible.

"Well, now that the honorable councilor has pledged himself to our cause, perhaps we ought to approach him with our request?" the one known as Zilitar said pointedly.

Tadosh rolled his eyes, although by this point any true reluctance on his part had been more or less quelled. "I should have known that you lot needed me for something."

"To tell the truth, we do not _need_ you, per se. You are, however, the best possible candidate I can think of."

Tadosh clicked his tongue a little restlessly. It seemed that Ashdod could never stop himself from beating around the bush. "Okay. And _what_ is it that you need, exactly?"

"It's very simply – really. Essentially, we need you to stall the Emperor."

Tadosh shrugged helplessly and sat silent for a moment. "So…you mean you want to be _filibuster_ him or something?"

Ashdod laughed and shook his head patronizingly. "You need to get your mind out of the debate hall, my friend – the time for debating and passing resolutions is over. I mean in a much more literal sense." He began to move his fingers erratically across the table as if he were drawing. "In just under an hour, the Emperor will depart from the Petitioner's Hall and begin making his way to his shuttle. At some point during his travel between those two points, you need to stop him and keep him talking for a while."

Tadosh appeared no less confused than he had a minute ago. "Wait, _why_? What's the purpose?"

"It's about that voice you heard, the one that you say sounded like a machine," Calpurnius explained. "As strange as it sounds, whoever 'owns' that voice appears to be controlling both the Empire and the insurgents. If we find them, we can eliminate their influence over the galaxy and set the Empire right with a single swoop," at this he crashed his fist emphatically into his palm."

"You need to fill in a few more blanks for me here," Tadosh pointed out. "How does me stalling the Emperor fit into this."

"The Emperor stays connected to his private extranet network at all times through an uplink module plugged into his brain," Nydomo began in what appeared to be his natural monotone of a voice. "Fortunately for us, Calpurnius has a hacking runtime in his omin-tool which lets us break into his network through his uplink module."

"For a while it used to only take a few seconds to override his firewalls," Calpurnius recounted. "I could just get in, grab some data, and get out no problem. He recently got some sort of new module though – it must be some sort of new government prototype. Anyway, its miles ahead of what he used to be using, whatever it is. Now I typically need around five minutes of load time to get inside his network, and I can't stay in for very long either."

The conversation was briefly interrupted by the return of the waitress. With little in the way of ceremony she put the bill on the table and crossed her arms impatiently. Ashdod quickly took out his pen.

"In this case that won't be too much of a problem since we're only looking to get a very specific set of files; that is to say, anything relating to the unknown voice from the recording." He finished scribbling on the tab and handed it back to the waitress. "The only problem really is getting into the system. If you can keep the Emperor in one place for just five minutes – maybe a little more – we can get the data that we need."

"Why does it have to be _me_ who stalls him – not that I don't want to help," he added quickly, keenly aware that his devotion to the cause was probably suspect to begin with.

"I am afraid my associates are not the type of people whom the Emperor would be willing to hold a conversation with," Ashdod grinned. "And His Majesty and I have not exactly been on the best of terms lately."

Part of Tadosh was still desperately trying to tell him to go home and forget that any of this ever happened, but he knew that there was no turning back by this point. He had sworn to give them his help, and he did not go back on his promises. Besides, how dangerous could it be to just try and talk to somebody?

_Not just 'somebody'_, his intuition seemed to say, gnawing at the back of his mind, _the Emperor! You've already gotten on his bad side today…_

Tadosh literally shook the thoughts from his head. His nerves were beginning to twist at his stomach, and he was anxious to do his job and be done with it. "What of it then, brothers? Shall we get to work?"

Ashdod, in typical fashion, acted as if he were shocked to discover that they had something they were supposed to do. "Yes, we shouldn't waste any more time." He stood and beckoned for the others to follow behind him. "We'll take Citadel Transit down to the Spire. You should be able to catch the Emperor before he departs for his palace."

"Where will you be in all of this?" Tadosh asked of Calpurnius, realizing to his consternation that he still didn't have a very thorough grasp of the plan.

"I'll just park myself on a bench near where you stop him," Calpurnius dismissed casually. "He shouldn't think to stop and accost me, and if he does then its just further proof that he has something to hide."

"And what if he _does_ stop you? What will you _do_?"

"I believe my years spent running with the under-city crowd have more than prepared me for such situations," Calpurnius laughed. "We'll just have to run."

* * *

Tadosh checked and rechecked the corridor, the anxiety in his stomach now having mutated into full-on terror. On a nearby bench lay Calpurnius, sprawled out across the length of the seat like one of the countless beggars who plied the halls of the Presidium seeking the generosity of the nobility; it was a clever and well-done disguise. Tadosh was too nervous to dare acknowledge him in any way, but inwardly he gave the man an impressed nod of the head.

The Emperor was getting closer now, his entourage apparently having been dismissed. As ever the aging sovereign looked confident and in-control, his every moment exuding imperial authority and poise. In the past Tadosh would have been thrilled at the chance to have a conversation with the man, but given all that had happened it took Tadosh every fiber of his self-control not to turn and run.

The Emperor was getting closer now, the intricate patterns of his imperial garment becoming visible on his person. He looked exceedingly regal, decked out in all the trappings of royalty: fine clothes, sacred relics, priceless gems. This was, Tadosh realized, the closest he had ever been to the man who trillions of people knew as the Emperor. He wondered, too, if he would ever be able to get this close again.

There was no time left to stall – it was now or never. Tadosh quickly stepped forward from his spot in the corner, suddenly feeling as if the entire Citadel was watching him. "Good tidings, Your Majesty! Your imperial grace seems to work wonders on the weather; the sunlight today is gorgeous!"

"It' always sunny on the Citadel, it's a space station," the Emperor retorted, his lips pursed tightly into a thin line. His face was completely unreadable. "What can I do for you, Councilor V'tun?"

Tadosh peered anxiously over Hadrius' shoulder, trying to see what Calpurnius was doing. The conspirator gently nodded his head and held up five outstretched fingers. _"Keep going,"_ he mouthed.

Terror and adrenaline surged through Tadosh's veins; he could feel beads of sweat beginning to run down the back of his neck. He couldn't believe that _now_, when it was most needed, he couldn't think of anything to say to his Emperor. "Err," he began weakly. "Have you ever tried counting the Keepers?"

Hadrius rolled his eyes angrily and began walking again. "I don't have time for this nonsense councilor. My shuttle awaits me."

"Stop!" Tadosh cried, his mind shifting into overdrive and he wracked its every last nook and cranny. He struggled for words as the Emperor slowly turned back around. "I uh…I wanted to ask your opinion on a new edict I've been thinking of."

"Ask."

"I had this thought," Tadosh began, although in truth 'thoughts' were something he sorely lacked at the moment. "A lot of insurgent attacks seem to occur because the provinces don't communicate efficiently with the Naval Chancellery. If we gave the provinces the authority to command their own fleets, we could give them more flexibility to react to raids," Tadosh finished, feeling reasonably confident that his idea was genuine enough.

'Slits' did not adequately describe just how narrow the Emperor's eyes became. "That idea sounds quite familiar, Councilor. Probably because I spent seven years of my reign fighting the heretical forces of Governor Berendil in order to _remove_ that very same right from the provinces in the first place."

The councilor's whole body seized up, his mind became numb and unresponsive; first daydreaming in the middle of Council and now _this_. In his mind Tadosh envisioned a tally mark being slowly added to his total. _Strike two_, he thought grimly.

"Look Your Majesty," he tried again, redoubling his efforts. "I understand that you are very adamant in your stance on provincial rights. But the system that we have now clearly doesn't work! These insurgents attacks continue unabated and our traditional responses deliver no respite. The Empire faces annihilation if we do not change our tactics!"

The Emperor snorted and looked upon Tadosh as if he were little better then an insurgent himself. "Your words are as foolish as your ideas – both have amply confirmed my suspicions about you. This conversation is at an end." The Emperor swung around and began to storm away again.

"You used to be different!" Tadosh cried, his voice laden with sorrow and accusation. He no longer remembered his instructions to stall the Emperor, or the colleague who sat inert behind him. He knew only that the man that he idolized and admired was perishing before his eyes. "You used to actually care about the Empire – you took pleasure in running it! Now you are nothing but a madman and a liar!"

It took Hadrius painful seconds to turn and face his accuser, but Tadosh still couldn't have braced himself for the malice and contempt that radiated from the Emperor's stare. "Get you home, Governor. Your sickness of the mind reflects poorly on you."

Tadosh didn't bother waiting for him to leave; he didn't bother waiting to see if they had gotten the data either. He instead tore away at near-run, not daring to stop until he had put as much distance as possible between himself and the traitor who called himself an Emperor.


	5. Chapter 4: The Ship

**Chapter 4**

As far as the insurgents were concerned, there was a typical stereotype which tended to pervade their image and reputation amongst the ruling elite of the Empire. They were consistently described by citizens as being barbaric and bestial, lacking most of the manners and refinements which characterized civilization and society. Imperial propaganda tended to depict them as being, quite tangibly, filthy and disgusting, with matted hair, dirt-caked skin, and rotten, blackened teeth. Few other times in history had a stereotype been so perfectly accurate on all accounts.

"Hey, Metellus!" the rebel cried to his colleague, eying Dertek as if he were some sort of prized animal caught in a hunt. "Check on this badge on this guy! I think we may have got ourselves a governor!"

The insurgent known as Metellus holstered his rifle and slowly waded his way through the swamp to young magistrate; looking indifferently upon the man's frenzied struggling. He knelt down and cupped Dertek's chin firmly in his hand, as if he were appraising an antique, or deciding whether or not to eat a bite of food. "Looks a little young to be a governor," he finally decided, his rancid breath causing Dertek to gag momentarily. Metellus clenched his jaw and resolved to pretend as if he hadn't noticed. "Look at the tentacles on him. He can't be older than thirty, max."

The other rebel frowned at this disappointing conclusion. "Even if he's not a governor, he still works for the government _somehow_." Look at this," he insisted, yanking Dertek violently to his feet in order to display the badge on his chest. "That's the insignia of an Academy graduate – see?"

"Just because he graduated from the Academey does not necessarily mean that he is an official of any importance," Metellus insisted. "He could still be waiting for an assignment, or even-"

"You know, I'm standing _right here_," Dertek hissed through gritted teeth, eying his captor with a maniacal, unfocused glare. "You could just talk to _me_ instead of bickering with one another."

Dertek half expected what came next, but he still couldn't stop himself from cringing as Metellus abruptly brought his fist down, pummeling him hard in the jaw. He could have sworn that he tasted some blood in his mouth as he threw out his arms and tried to steady himself. His tormentor grinned sadistically back at him, clearly relishing the look on his captive's face.

Dertek could feel the warmth of the blood swishing around in his mouth; in defiance of his instincts he forced himself to swallow it down. He was fully determined not to show any signs of weakness that might further embolden the two rebels. For now they both seemed completely preoccupied with their own private discussion, although the hand on the back of his neck seemed as firm as ever.

"Hey…hey, Dertek!"

The whisper was made so quietly that it could easily have passed for an idle breath. Dertek chanced a look to his right and discovered, for the first time, his colleague Zhor kneeling captive in the mud, looking shaken but unharmed. He was so relieved to see the scientists alive that he nearly forgot the circumstances. "I thought for a minute I was the only one left!" Dertek whispered back. "Do you know if anyone else is okay?"

Zhor's eyes scanned the area quickly, his head and body remaining perfectly still. Dertek felt the urge to look too, but he was terrified at the prospect that his snooping might be discovered. He turned his head back to face the two insurgents standing next to him. They were still locked in a heated discussion, but there was no telling when they might finish.

"It looks like all of the non-combatant personnel might have survived," Zhor reported, still silently checking the clearing. "I don't think any of the guards that we with us are still alive though."

Dertek saw the blur as it came down; he tried to open his mouth to warn Zhor but it was too late. The insurgent smashed the scientist hard over the head with the butt of his gun, driving the man's face straight into the mud with a crack. The insurgent snarled as cocked his rifle as he looked down at his victim pitifully trying to push himself to his feet. "No talking, vermin. That goes for all of you."

"Iullius, you damn moron!" Metellus shrieked, causing his comrade to jump, "We were told to leave the scientists _alive_! That precludes _smashing_ them over the head!"

Iullius grumbled to himself but obediently bent down and helped raised Zhor back to his feet, albeit with a little more force than was probably necessary. His whole face seemed to pucker, as if he were pouting over the loss of his prey. "What about that extra, from the Academy?" he whined with an accusatory finger toward Dertek. "Nobody said we couldn't hurt him…"

"Yeah," Metellus barked, sounding distinctly unimpressed, "and nobody said we _could_ either, dipshit." He holstered his gun and cupped his hands around his mouth. "No more hitting the prisoners!" he ordered, casting his gaze in a wide arc across the band of insurgents. "At least not _these_ ones, anyway."

"We should really get moving again, sir," one of the insurgents said, apparently deciding that there was no point to waiting around if they couldn't even torture their prisoners. "The commander told us to make this operation as quick as possible."

"I _know_ what the commander said," Metellus shot irritably, but he didn't bother to press this train of argument any further. He sighed and motioned silently for his comrades to form up. "Let's hurry up and get back to camp before the bugs start to come out. There shouldn't be any more Loyalist forces in the area, but keep on the alert just in case." He quickly made a final scan of his squad, looking to ensure that they were all ready. "Let's move, then."

A familiar pair of rough hands seized Dertek's arms in a vice grip, and before he could even react his hands had been cuffed together behind his back. He briefly made an attempt at struggle, trying to pry himself free before a sudden, piercing jolt of electricity coursed up his arm with an audible buzz. He could practically see the massive grin of the face of the insurgent behind him.

"You didn't think I was going to just hold your hands or something did you?"

Dertek bit back the stream of profanities that came to mind; to retaliate would only give his tormentor more satisfaction. Instead he was determined to meet the rebels' brutality with a certain stoic pride and indifference. He was better than these unwashed barbarians, he reminded himself: smarter, cleaner, and more sophisticated by a mile. He would show them just how dignified a true Prothean noble could be. Feigning indifference to the insurgent's laughter he straightened his back, drew up his head, and began to walk, following the others in what amounted to a very long and somber caravan of captives.

Despite the circumstances, it didn't take long for Dertek to fall back into his usual state of mind; within ten minutes he had returned to his characteristic sarcasm and cynicism, swearing liberally with each and every stride through the mud. He found it especially challenging to try and keep his balance without the use of his arms; and they hadn't made it more than half a mile before his foot caught onto a root and sent him flying face-first into the sludge.

"I'd help you up if I could, but my hands are as tied as yours, my friend."

Dertek, with much in the way of moaning and groaning, slowly worked up the will to lift his head up from the mud, peering through a layer of dirt and slime into Zhor's familiar, wizened face. Dertek groaned and clumsily pushed himself to his feet. "If condolences are all you have then I suppose I'll take it," he sighed, brushing himself off in a futile attempt to clean himself up. "You have any guesses as to where we're headed?"

"No guess is required, Mr. V'tun," Zhor said with uncanny cheerfulness as the two set off together along the path. "This is the same trail we were on before the ambush. If my predication is correct, then we're being taken straight to the dig site where the excavation team is."

Dertek mulled this over in his mind for a minute. Now that he thought about it, it _did_ seem exactly like the path they had been on before; then again, he imagined that in a thick jungle like this, all paths would look alike. More troubling than that, however, was the implications of their destination. "Doctor," Dertek murmured, realizing that their conversation was probably being listened to, "why would we be headed to the dig site? I mean, what you think is going to happen when we get there?"

Zhor turned his eyes skyward in contemplation, posing himself like one of the ancient philosophers whose statues graced the Hall of Records. "Personally I see two different possibilities. On the one hand, the insurgents may be planning to use us in order to lure our workers into a false sense of security – so that they can attack with the element of surprise."

Dertek bit his lip anxious, already knowing what the scientist was going to say next. "That…_or_?"

"Or," Zhor sighed, contorting his features slightly as if the words tasted bitter in his mouth, "they could have been attacked already, and the rebels are simply using the dig site as a base camp. That, obviously, is not the preferable outcome."

"No," Dertek admitted blandly, "It is not. That would ruin our only chance of getting out of here alive."

"It remains to be seen what these insurgents want from us," Zhor reminded pointedly. "I suspect that they made need our expertise in order to study the artifact. If that's the case, then it will give us some valuable leverage to bargain for our lives with."

"But what about _me_?" Dertek insisted, pointing emphatically towards himself. "I'm not a scientist, and I most certainly don't have any expertise! Not to mention that I'm a representative of the same government that they've been warring against all this time! At their earliest convenience they'll just line me up against a wall, blindfold me and-"

"Get a hold of yourself!" Zhor hissed as several of the insurgents began to notice Dertek's panicked shouting. "Listen, you need to try and pass yourself off as a member of the science team." He turned sideways and, with an awkward, full-body motion, brushed Dertek's academy badge off with his hands. "Forget about it," he added hastily, noticing the young man's distress. "That damn thing's not worth losing your life over, trust me. Now, I need to acquaint you with what we've been doing these past weeks."

"You should have done that back on the station!" Dertek growled, his typical thin veil of politeness finally beginning to crack. "What the hell kind of Chief Scientist are you, dragging me down here without telling me anything about what's even going on!"

"I was told to keep you in the dark for the most part," Zhor apologized, his eyes silently pleading for Dertek to understand. "The Emperor's orders, not mine. What we're working on here is of the highest possible security classification; it's a matter of galactic importance!"

"And what _is_ it, exactly?"

"Listen – you know the basics already," Zhor sighed exasperatedly. "We found a five billion year-old inactive ship buried away in the ground here; we think it'd still function if activated but we don't know yet. The two main questions we need to answer right now are primarily 'who built it' and 'how does it work'? One of the reports sent up to the station mentioned what appeared to be markings lining the outside of the structure that the ship was entombed in. If it turns out to be some form of writing or hieroglyphics, we might be on the right track to finding out why the hell this thing was built."

Dertek nodded absently; trying to quickly memorize everything he had been told about the ship. He was pretty sure he had the basic facts down, but if the insurgents asked him for a detailed analysis, he was screwed. "This ship…it's big, right?"

Zhor seemed surprised by the question, as if it were foolish to even ask. "Oh yes, very. You'll see for yourself in a minute – we're just about there."

The two abruptly became aware of a small commotion at the front of the pack; a few loud shouts of surprise, followed by the sound of several insurgents sternly barking out orders. Dertek pushed himself up onto his toes and strained his neck, but he still couldn't see anything through the thick foliage. "You think somebody tried to make a run for it?" he offered.

"Doubtful. I'm sure all the other scientists have weighed out their odds as I have. Even if they managed to escape, where would they go? It's not like you'd ever find your way out of here, and the nearest village-"

As they finally neared the crest of the hill they were traveling on, Dertek suddenly realized what had caused the confusion amongst his colleagues; he froze, rooted firmly into the ground with shock. He extended an arm and weakly tapped Zhor on the shoulder. "Doctor," he whispered, his voice sounding hoarse with astonishment, "look at this."

Never before had such a simple sight seemed so sinister and threatening. Lying just a few meters of the jungle trail lay the crumpled forms of two Imperial soldiers, their corpses neatly stacked atop one another like timber. The condition of their bodies gave the impression that they were only recently dead, although Dertek had no idea what effect the environment would have had. He scanned the area around their bodies, desperately looking for their guns or ammo, but his search turned up neither. The rebels had been a step ahead.

"Oh…oh my," Zhor muttered, sounding only vaguely distressed by the stack of corpses he was looking at. "These are probably the sentries that the excavation team put out. This more or less confirms my fear that the insurgents have seized the dig site. The only reason they captured _us_ is probably because they don't understand the utility of what we found…damn fools."

"Your research installation is the fool," Dertek sighed. "You said that the excavation team hadn't reported back when they were supposed to – shouldn't that have indicated that _something_ was wrong? Not even indentured _dockhands_ would have just gone and blown-off an assignment if it were a matter of 'galactic importance'!"

Zhor nodded silently to himself, accepting the accusations against him as Dertek rattled on with his tirade. "You're right, of course – I _should_ have known. I guess I just didn't want to believe that something had gone wrong. This discovery has such huge implications for our society…and now the insurgents have gone and put their grubby hands all over it."

"_Whose_ hands are we talking about, now?"

The pair was abruptly pulled from their musings beside the two corpses by the arrival of a small group of insurgents; to their surprise they found themselves now at the tail end of the marching column, everyone else having already passed by over the hill. Zhor smiled uncomfortably at the rebel, trying in vain to devise a way out of the situation. "Er…my deepest apologies, sir. I was of course only speaking metaphorically."

The insurgent snarled and cocked his head to the side with an audible crack. "Get your asses moving and cut the funny business. The camp we're headed to is just over this hill here."

The two did as they were told, moving at a half-jog up the last stretch of the path and taking care to keep their heads down the whole way lest they give the rebels a reason to shoot. As they rounded the final bend heading up to the top, Zhor gave his friend a small nudge with his shoulder. "You'll probably see the ship as soon as we get to the top. Try not to act surprised when you see it – it'll make your disguise more authentic if you act like you've seen it before."

Dertek made a particular irreverent noise with his tongue. "Easy. What, am I supposed to be totally blown-away by some spaceship? I've seen my fair share of spaceships, my friend, and I bet that-"

Any intention he had originally had of acting unimpressed fell away in an instant as he beheld t for the first time. When all the files and reports he had been given spoke about the artifact being a "spaceship", they were doing a huge disservice to the sheer magnitude and majesty of the construct. It was more like a giant city than anything else, a floating, tangled web of metal and glass, possessing no discernible shape or form. Its size was simply unbelievable; even from half a mile away Dertek still couldn't make out the full extent of it in any direction. For the first time he shared Zhor's feelings of wonderment and mystery – he suddenly felt, as surely all others who looked upon it must have, a burning desire to understand just what it was.

"Incredible, isn't it?" Zhor said, clearly pleased to see that his new colleague was finally beginning to appreciate the importance of their work. "Look at those tents," he added, inclining his head reverentially in the direction of the massive crater below. "They look like children's toys compared to that thing. I'm impressed they even managed to dig the damn thing out."

"How _did_ they, in fact?" Dertek asked, trying to keep his mind distracted from the trails of bodies which had begun to litter the trail. As they entered the camp he kept his eyes desperately peeled for any hint of a dropped gun or blade, but the insurgents hadn't left anything behind. _Not like it would have done any good anyway_, Dertek realized bitterly. _I can't exactly shoot a gun with my hands chained behind my back_.

"Don't try any funny business in front of the boss," one the rebels growled, needlessly re-cocking his heat sink for effect. "We're keeping a close eye on you government pigs."

"Oh yeah," Dertek snorted as some of his characteristic sarcasm began to return to him. "Because I'm sure you usually have your hands full keeping an eye on all these identical trees here."

The insurgent began what Dertek was pretty sure was going to be an especially vehement chain of expletives, but the group was suddenly arrested by a series of loud shouts. All heads turned in confusion towards a nearby tent, from which stepped an insurgent that Dertek recognized as being named Metellus, along with several of his rebel comrades; they seemed to observe the emerging argument with a certain detached amusement.

"Oh, M-Metellus!" the rebel blustered. "I was just preparing to discipline-"

Metellus casually shot his subordinate down with a wave of the hand. "Relax, Udatus, you're not in trouble. Kindly go and have the others assemble the prisoners here, would you?"

Udatus quickly obliged, obviously relieved by the opportunity to depart. Further away, within the depths of the camp, Dertek could already hear a general uproar of noise building, as the other captives were ordered to their feet again. The volume of it surprised Dertek; he realized for the first time that the original excavation team had probably been imprisoned here as well – and perhaps other groups of people, too. He turned his head slightly and tried to whisper as quietly as he possibly could. "How many workers were excavating this site?"

"Somewhere around a hundred or so," Zhor guessed with a shrug. "I don't think we ever took a detailed inventory. We just sent the workers down to the surface as they arrived."

Dertek released an audible groan and rolled his eyes. "It's a good thing you scientist types are always so _precise_ with everything!"

Zhor's usually patient demeanor fell away with surprising speed, evidently no longer able to handle the sheer amount of virulence coming from the administrator. "As if _you're_ one to talk! It's a wonder you ever graduated from the Academy at all what with your complete inability-"

"_My inability_!" Dertek hissed as if the thought were physically corrosive to him. "I'm not the _genius_ who decided to interpret silence as an invitation to come on down!"

"I already said-"

"Enough, gentlemen, please," Metellus pleaded with plainly false concern. "Is this really an appropriate time and place for you two to be fighting?" He turned theatrically to the insurgent standing at his side. "These Loyalist rats simply have no sense of manners or decorum, eh sir?"

The insurgent commander did not bother pretending to share Metellus' joke; instead he gave a haughty sniff, as if to imply that he found such flattery repulsive. Dertek felt a momentary surge of respect and appreciation for the towering barbarian, if only on account of their mutual dislike for Metellus.

"Where are the other prisoners?" The commander demanded flatly of his subordinate.

"They…are still being led over, sir," Metellus assured, trying his to recover from the verbal whipping he had received. "It is possible that some are being insubordinate and will not come."

The commander nodded back silently, keeping his thoughts and emotions entirely to himself. Dertek now instantly identified this man as being the only apparent threat amongst the rebel ranks. Even if he had only just appeared on the scene, he already emanated an obvious atmosphere of competence and skill.

"Then I will speak with these men first," the commander asserted, casting a massive hand in Dertek's direction. The young magistrate felt as if all the blood had just drained from his body; his vision pulsed with adrenaline.

"Of course, sir," Metellus agreed as his commander approached the two captives. "That is a sensible choice – I recognize the prisoner on the left. He is the chief scientist of this project."

"Is he?" the commander said with hardly the slightest hint of genuine surprise of curiosity. "Then we are in luck. I expected their lead scientist to remain aboard the station." Dertek felt a sudden sense of dread as the insurgent turned in his direction; briefly their gazes locked together, and Dertek quickly tore his head to the side in fear. _Foolish_, he chided himself. He made a weak attempt at pretending he had seen something in the trees.

"Who is this other one, then? Is he also a scientist?"

Metellus gazed down at the captive, measuring him with an impassive glare. "I don't remember…I think he's one of the main science team that came down on the shuttles, sir."

A long and tense pause ensued, in which the insurgent commander continued to stare intently at Dertek as if he expected to suddenly unearth some hereto undiscovered fact or revelation. Eventually he abandoned his search and swiveled back around to face Zhor, who was staring absently up at the clouds as if he found them to be overwhelmingly fascinating.

"_You_ are the head scientist?"

Zhor appeared surprised by the question; he looked back down at the rebel and smiled pleasantly, seemingly very intent on pretending that he was not tied-up and imprisoned in a hostile encampment, or perhaps simply ignorant of the fact. "Why yes, that would be me."

The commander grunted and folded his arms. With the gigantic chassis of the ship centered in the crater behind him his posed looked particularly cinematic. "Explain to me your work here on this…thing."

Zhor cleared his throat and straightened himself as best he could from his position on the ground. "We began our work on this planet expecting to excavate some architectural ruins that scanning equipment picked up on. Instead, our researchers found this ship. Its huge size and unique construction must have caused the scanners on the orbital installation to identify it as the remains of a city."

"Have you been inside it at all?"

Zhor shook his head quickly. "No, we haven't There are several visible openings, some of which are at ground level, but nobody from my installation has been inside as far as I know."

The insurgent's eyes narrowed in contemplation. "How can it be destroyed?"

The question, which had no discernible lead-up or logical prompt, stunned both Zhor and Dertek as they heard it. It was innocuous enough on its surface, but the fact that it came totally out of nowhere, combined with the overall circumstances in which it was asked, meant that the rebel had unwillingly revealed far more information than he had intended. _It's not that they want it_, Dertek realized grimly. _It's that they want to stop us from using it ourselves_.

"I don't _know_ how," Zhor relented after a long pause. "Initial tests suggest that its hull is incredibly durable and difficult to damage. Even when orbital mining lasers were used to help with excavation, no visible damage was done to the ship."

"Well there we are, then," The commander decided, his grin serving as the first apparent sign of emotion he had displayed. "You two fine gentlemen and your colleagues are going to continue your studies of this ship," he ordered, "until you can discover for me what it will take to destroy the damn thing."

"Um, sir," Metellus cut in, his voice fluctuating unpredictably between deferential and concerned. "I wanted to actually talk to you about the possibility of using-"

"Not here," the commander retorted.

"But sir-"

"Enough!" he spat, seizing Metellus painfully by the arm and pulling him closer until their filthy faces were practically touching one another. "The Machines gave us a very specific order – said it was the most important job they could possibly give. I'm not about to disobey the Machines."

Metellus quickly drew himself away from his superior, all the color having drained swiftly from his face. "Of-of course, sir! My apologies!"

The commander grumbled and turned slowly back to his tent. "Put those two in the cells with the rest. Never mind the other prisoners."


	6. Chapter 5: The Party

**AN:** So it's been a long time. I read this the other day and was inspired to write more. I can't promise that I'll finish it, but maybe - hopefully. Let me address a few things. I started writing this before ME3 came out; some of the plot of my story conflicts with the plot of ME3. So consider this sort of an AU then, I guess. Also I understand BioWare apparently went into some more detail about the Protheans; nothing was known about them when I started writing this. From what I gather, nothing in my story conflicts _too_ heavily with the new cannon but if it does, again, just consider this my interpretation of the Protheans. I like mine better anyway

So here we go!

* * *

"Absolutely not!"

"Come now my friend," Ashdod persisted, his gnarled hands stretched out to his sides in exasperation, "be reasonable!"

"I already went along with your stupid plan," Tadosh half-whined, half-shouted, "what more do you want from me?"

"The information we extracted from the Emperor's person," Ashdod explained calmly, "are just fragments, which only make sense if we have-"

Tadosh rounded on his friend in a huff, clapping his palm to his chest in indignation. "I have been _more_ than reasonable," he seethed, his voice torn between spiteful anger and pure frustration, "I told you I would give you what help I could, but this is _too much_!"

Ashdod gawked as if his friend were descending into madness. "This is hardly an extraordinary request-"

"You want me," Tadosh rumbled in low, dangerous tones, "to sneak into the Emperor's _private_ quarters-"

"He's hosting an imperial gala at the palace tomorrow, it will be trivial to-"

"-_hack_ into his _private_ computer-"

"Calpurnius has already written the code – it will take only minutes to-"

"-_steal_ his _personal_ files-"

"We'll plant garbage copies of the originals – he'll never notice the dif-"

"Oh, give me a _fucking_ break!" Tadosh roared, pounding the crystalline glass of the coffee table with his fist. He blushed a little at his shameful loss of composure but still he pressed on. "You make it sound like such a simple matter – this is high treason we're talking about!" He leaned forward, eyes wide, pointing his finger emphatically at himself, "you know, _I'm_ the one who will get caught if things go wrong – _not_ you."

Ashdod snorted his defiance at his colleague – at this amateur who thought to try and give him advice. "Do you really think it would not take the Inquisitors but _hours_ to trace the entire operation back to me – back to us!?" He gestured to the longue where their three co-conspirators had sprawled themselves in thuggish fashion. "These men have a history, Tadosh – _I_, have a history. It is not a history that will reflect well upon me in the eyes of the law."

"You're missing the _point_!" Tadosh snarled, throwing his head back in ire. Just as quickly he buried it in his hands, sighing with exhaustion and revulsion at the insane plot he had allowed himself to become ensnared in. He let his arms droop back to his sides, revealing the tenuous impassive visage he had managed to plaster over his face. "How would I even get inside the party," he demanded flatly, his frustration still simmering just beneath the surface. "I'm not on the Emperor's list – certainly not after that _disaster_ of a conversation we had yesterday.

"Oh, you're on the list alright…"

The two men turned to the couches where the others had settled themselves; Calpurnius was on his feet now, sauntering over with a confidence that did not quite match his young and gangly appearance. "I've had access to the Chancellery's main database for months now," he explained, with a nonchalance that fooled nobody. "I put your name on the guest list last night – had to replace some Exarch from the Outer Rim, but I'm sure he'll live."

"Being invited to one of the Emperor's festivities is a big deal," Ashdod observed with an intolerable display of simpering. "He keeps close track of his guests. As I understand it's considered _very_ unwise to ignore his invitation."

Tadosh shook his head; he wanted to be furious but he could feel nothing, except perhaps the helpless despair of defeat. "This is not what I signed up for," he protested quietly. He closed his eyes and sighed, still shaking his head. "By my ancestors – what will Darria say…"

Ashdod watched his friend with growing perplexity, as if he could not really believe the pathetic spectacle unfolding before his eyes. "Come now Tadosh," he chided, a little more reprovingly than even he may have intended, "what sort of attitude is this? Our master plan has not even begun and already you are dwelling on defeat?" He stood with the aid of his cane and laid his free hand on his friend's shoulder, locking his fiery eyes with Tadosh's forlorn gaze. "I am not in the business of being defeated, my friend. Do you think I would put you to this task if I had not already conceived of every contingency – if I were not confident that my scheme is as perfect and foolproof as can be? Do you know nothing of me after all these years!" He gave his friend a playful shake, teasing a reluctant smile from his sagging face. "There is nothing to be afraid of; we have the upper hand! The Emperor suspects nothing. He thinks you are a critic – so what!?" he cried, gesturing wildly around his apartment as if daring the luxurious furniture to retort. "He is _surrounded_ by critics, day in and day out. He is no more wary of you than he is wary of his favorite _concubine_." Tadosh could not resist a grudging snicker.

"Listen to me," he continued, recapturing his air of gravitas, "great men are the men who make history. Great men are the men who do what must be done – even when it is hard – even when it is dangerous. And no man was _ever_ great, who was also a coward." He turned and held out his hand to the ceiling, inviting his friend to share his loft vision. "Tomorrow, you will do this task for me – this one simple, trivial task that will bring down an entire _web_ of corruption and intrigue. And in doing so," he promised, "you will become one of the great men of history."

Tadosh kept his eyes trained at the ground, thinking hard to himself. Some part of him – his more rational part no doubt – yearned for nothing more than to leave this unfamiliar new world he had stumbled into, to go back to a life of blissful ignorance far away from this talk of intrigue and treason and making history. But he thought back to his conversation with the Emperor. He remembered how coldly he had been treated, how quickly his concerns had been dismissed as if his voice mattered nothing at all. It was not just that the Emperor had become aloof or that he was conspiring with unknown enemies – it was that he treated his subjects like inferiors, barely worthy of speaking to him. Didn't that go against every value the Empire cherished? Had the Protheans not ascended to greatness because they were as _one_, working together – uplifting each other?

The heroes of Prothean history were the men who stood up and did extraordinary things for the common good; men like Zanator, the Unbroken, who charged his ship into a Metacon siege gun and prevented the glassing of Fehl Prime; men like Valtherion, who held off an entire army on the plains of Taycharia so that his brothers in arms could escape to bring word of the enemy invasion. They did not do these things because they yearned for glory, but because they knew it was the right thing to do. What would they say about Tadosh V'tun, if they knew he had the chance to help save the Empire from decay but was too cowardly to act?

Tadosh sighed and felt himself nod. "Okay," he relented, still barely believing his own recklessness. "I'll do it."

"Excellent!" Ashdod cried, clasping his hands together. "Then let us not waste any time."

* * *

"I can't stand this damn robe," Tadosh grumbled, tearing angrily at the frilly collar which engulfed his throat.

"That's Thessian silk you're wearing," Ashdod's voice shot back inside his ear, "it's worth more than your entire estate and everything in it."

This factoid did not seem to be of particular help; Tadosh squirmed anxiously in the back seat of the shuttle, fighting the claustrophobic garment as if it were an assailant smothering him. "Well I can barely breathe in it," he snapped. "Couldn't I have done without all these layers?"

"Not unless you want security to see all the hardware you've got on you," Calpurnius enjoined with underwhelming sympathy, filling the earpiece with the sound typing fingers. "The faster you get the files the faster you can take it off."

"And all the faster you can put me up to some other scheme, I'm sure," Tadosh grumbled, but he did not continue this line of thought as just then the shuttle door hissed open, revealing an excitable crowd of party-goers traveling in a lazy trickle up the red-carpeted steps of the palace. Much like Tadosh, they were all dressed in extravagant and ostentatious finery that would have made their ancestors weep – and much unlike Tadosh, they all seemed absolutely thrilled to be in attendance.

Tadosh exited his shuttle and began making his way towards the entrance, trying to behave as if he belonged. The heavy folds of his robe constricted his legs and the bulky machinery strapped to his body weighed down upon him like a suit of armor. Several times he very nearly lost his balance, but at last he arrived at the towering doors of the lobby, his disguise intact even as his confidence steadily withered.

"Hello sir," the greeter smiled not-so-genuinely; he looked at Tadosh's outfit with a connoisseur's distaste that might have been offensive if it were not completely unintelligible to the uninformed. "Your name please?"

"Tadosh V'tun," he declared; then uncertainly, "I am the Governor of Fhaldric."

The greeter nodded blankly, his smile straining a little. "Ah. Indeed. Let me see here." He typed quickly upon the screen mounted before him; when he returned his gaze to his guest, an air of suspicion had come upon him. "I'm sorry, but you don't seem to be on the list…"

Tadosh felt the blood rush to his face. Inside his ear, he heard the voice of Calpurnius chime in. "Just give it a few moments – the code is still executing!"

"Ah, well…" Tadosh countered, viscerally feeling the impatient stares of those behind him, "perhaps you could check it again?"

The greeter's eyes narrowed. "And what would _that_ do?"

"May-maybe my name hasn't been put on the list yet," Tadosh offered helplessly.

The greeter cocked his head to the side, his pleasant demeanor vanished entirely now. "And why would _that_ be the case?"

Tadosh opened his mouth dumbly, desperately searching his mind for some response even as he felt the proverbial noose drawn around his throat like the fluffy collar of his robe.

"_There _he is!"

The two men turned in shared surprise as a woman with long-tentacled hair came rushing over to the checkpoint, her long, elegant dress whipping airily about her feet as she went. She locked eyes with Tadosh for a moment but her face betrayed nothing.

"Ithelia!?" he blurted, completely and utterly confused now beyond all hope of recovery.

"I've been looking for you all over!" she exclaimed, "where did you go?"

"What?" Tadosh began, then seeing her pointed glare suddenly and miraculously took the hint. "Oh, I uh…I just stepped out for a moment, I…needed some air," he finished lamely, looking sheepishly at the greeter.

"You should have told me – you had me worried sick!" The lady turned to the greeter and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, he's with me – he has a habit of wandering off."

The greeter's eyes narrowed again. "You are Ithelia Y'vus?"

She fluttered her eyelids and smiled. "Yes that's correct."

He pointed. "This man is your husband?"

She hesitated for the slightest moment; they both looked at each other. "Mhm."

He glared at Tadosh. "You told me your name was Tadosh V'tun."

Tadosh stared back blankly, shaking his head with a grimace. "I _really_ needed some air."

The greeter rolled his eyes and cast his hand impatiently into the air. "_Fine_, just get _out_ of here!" he snapped, angrily tapping at his console. "Next!"

Ithelia grabbed his hand, and next thing he knew he was led inside the palace, the quiet of the Citadel grounds falling away as the beat of music and the hum of conversation rose up in its place. Prothean architecture favored simple geometry and plain construction, and all of these were present in the mathematically precise layout of the Emperor's palace. He showed his opulence through what the rooms _contained_; mainly expensive furnishings and glittering golden festoonery. With practiced grace, Ithelia led him through the labyrinth of rooms and the teeming mass of people to a tiny clearing beside the sumptuous offerings of a refreshment table. Her mouth moved at a dizzying pace, made all the quicker by the massive strobe light which roared to life overhead.

"What!?"

"I said what are you doing here!?" she repeated, leaning in closer.

"Oh…I'm here to see the Emperor!" he replied.

She drew back, giving him a distinctly contemptuous stare. "No shit; I mean _why_ are you here!?"

Tadosh shook his head and opened his mouth dumbly, buying time. "Just, you know, to talk to him, maybe talk about politics or something!"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, turning away from him. "You're such a liar Tadosh."

"I'm not a _liar_!" he insisted, but she was already disappearing into the mob, her half-finished drink still resting in her hand. Tadosh sighed, but before he could do anything else his earpiece crackled alive again.

"Good, you lost her," Ashdod reported cheerfully. "Now we just need to get you inside the Emperor's private quarters and you should be able to access his computer from there."

"Yeah well I can't exactly just _walk_ upstairs or anything," Tadosh snapped; he snatched a drink off the table and quickly downed it, scanning the room. The cadre of muscular guards blocking the staircase conveniently reinforced his point.

"No, you can't – that's why you need to head to the bathroom – it's right behind you, last door at the end of the hallway."

"How the hell is _this_ going to work?" he grumbled even as he was already making his way there.

"There's an air duct in the bathroom ceiling," Ashdod explained calmly. "If you can get inside, eventually it'll lead to another duct the Emperor's bedchamber."

Tadosh shook his head, his anger brewing inside of him. "And how _exactly _am I going to crawl up into the ceiling without anybody noticing?" he demanded.

Ashdod's raspy voice chuckled inside his ear. "That's _your_ problem my friend."

He entered the bathroom, following close behind one of his fellow partygoers. In typical Prothean style, the restroom was tasteful and elegant whilst remaining Spartan and plain; the cool colors of the marble countertops and tile floor upheld an air of dignity even as the smell of unpleasant business wafted over the dividers of the stalls. At the other end of the room, hovering above the row of sinks, the entrance to the air duct waited in plain sight; Tadosh stared and helplessly pondered what he should do, feeling awkward and out of place as guests moved crisply in and out of the room while he stood motionless.

"Tadosh?" Calpurnius buzzed into his ear, "we have a little problem…"

He turned to face the wall and pressed a finger to his ear, very conscious of how strange he must look muttering to himself. "What do you mean?"

"Imperial Cybersecurity discovered us trying to put your name on the guest list," Calpurnius explained tensely, "they know somebody's trying to tamper with their files – they're trying to trace our signal as we speak."

"What!?" Tadosh exclaimed; he turned suddenly around, looking in wide-eyed alarm at the confused faces staring back at him. Hastily, head down, he ducked his way into an adjacent stall and seated himself on the commode, trying with relatively little success to control his voice. "What do you _mean_ they're tracing us?"

"They're triangulating this signal to try and locate us – if they succeed, they'll be able to trace us back to our current location."

"Wha-well then _hang up_!" Tadosh cried, despairing at the chaos he should have known would unfold. "This plan is a _disaster_ anyway!"

"It's too late – we've come too far already," Ashdod reasoned, "if they trace our current location we'll just have to relocate somewhere else – we can be evacuated by the time the Inquisition shows up."

Tadosh could not help but rise to his feet in rage. "Your current location is _my apartment_ you jackass!"

A trio of knocks echoed off the door of the stall. "Is everything alright in there?"

Tadosh recoiled from the door, pulling his feet up to his chest. "Y-yes, everything's fine, no trouble!" He leaned away secretively, still curled up into a ball. "Listen to me – you _cannot_ let them trace your location, do you understand?" The knocking returned. "I said I'm _fine_!"

"I'm delaying them – we still have another ten minutes before we need to go dark. Is that enough time?"

Tadosh rested his head on his palm, trying to think even though he had no idea where to even begin his thoughts. Ashdod, for all his other vices, was correct in this instance: it was too late to back out. Even if he just left now, they knew it was his name they had tried to put on the list. What would happen when the word got back to the Emperor? Would he suspect Tadosh's true motive? Despair prodded at him but he steeled himself, refocusing on the present and nodding to try and buoy his resolve. "Okay. Let's do it."

For a third time there was an insistent knock at his door; Tadosh flung it open, stepping out from the stall to stand before a small crowd of bewildered guests who had apparently been drawn to the spectacle. "Er…you all need to leave now," he declared abruptly, looking around at their dumfounded faces, "there's been uh…a radiation leak; really bad; very dangerous."

"What?"

His earpiece buzzed. "Show them your hacking module," Calpurnius hissed.

"Uh…oh yes – this!" Tadosh declared, reaching awkwardly beneath his robe. With a slight grunt he detached the bulky module and took it out for all to see. "This is my radiometer," he explained, flicking the power on. It conveniently began to squawk and churn quite loudly, "I'm afraid it's detected some serious levels of radiation in this area."

The guests began to murmur concernedly. "Is it safe?"

"Why yes – I mean no!" he corrected suddenly, "no, not at all, very dangerous – you should all leave at once! Tell everyone!"

They all departed in a panic, flooding out of the bathroom in a sea of terrified fluffy colors. Tadosh took a deep breath, savoring his brief moment of solitude. With a paranoid glance over his shoulder he vaulted himself up onto the countertop and yanked away the grate, finding himself face-to-face with a long tunnel of dusty blackness. "How am I supposed to climb up there?"

"We gave you some adhesive pads…"

So he found himself, inch by inch, rising up into the cramped confines of the air duct, his lungs and eyes burning from the dust and his body contorted like a ragdoll to make the journey possible. Just when he could take no more, and he was about to go off on his far more comfortable companions, his hands hit flat ground and he hoisted himself up onto a level plane at last.

"Now you just need to find the entrance to the Emperor's quarters," Calpurnius explained. "It should be just a little further down."

He was exhausted now, and more than a little fed-up, but still he crawled through the silent vacuum of the duct, listening in silent horror as the floor popped and groaned with every step. He looked down; he was above some exercise room, filled with fancy machines and endless racks of weights. He kept going and looked down again; he was above a study room, with long bookshelves and cozy carpeted floors. He crawled his way to the next vent. "I think I found it," he whispered as he collapsed into a round of coughing.

"The coordinates seem correct…" Calpurnius mused to himself. "Okay, go for it."

Tadosh brought his fist down hard, and suddenly the entire grate collapsed like a piece of rotten wood and he tumbled, arms flailing, down onto the hard mattress of the Emperor's bed. He jolted upright, looking around wildly, half-expecting to have dropped into the middle of some private meeting, but only the tasteful expanse of the Imperial bedchamber lay in front of him; he was all alone.

"Okay so the Emperor's private terminal should be somewhere in this room."

After a moment of scanning he found it, sitting casually on the hardwood desk as if it were just some terminal at an Imperial library. Hastily he seated himself and turned it on; the login menu popped-up, expectantly demanding a password. "I don't know the code," Tadosh whispered anxiously.

"That's what the hacking module is for…"

Carefully Tadosh retrieved his all-purpose hacking module and, after looking at it dumbly for a few moments, snapped it onto the front of the Emperor's computer. It set to work immediately, its gears whirring to life as the little screen in the center flickered on and began to report. _Initializing sequence…assessing security countermeasures…_

A minute passed and nothing changed. Another minute passed – still nothing. Tadosh began to feel uneasy; why was it taking so long? Had it not worked; what if an alarm had gone off – what if they were on their way to arrest him right now!? He was nearly about to voice these semi-rational concerns when the module abruptly beeped, and a massive list of files started scrolling across the screen at a dizzying pace.

…

_copying transponder_cipher_

_copying fleetrecord1_

_copying fleetrecord2_

_copying sovereign_summit7_

_copying ilos_project_

…

And about a million others, all whizzing by much too quickly for Tadosh to even make an attempt at reading them. He paced back and forth impatiently, casting paranoid glances at the bedroom door. "Come _on_." He leaned over the desk and up to the module, looking at the faint image of his own reflection as endless lines of code poured across it. "How long is this thing supposed to take?"

He did not hear the answer, because at that moment the door to the bedchamber chimed and hissed open. Ithelia walked in, her cool expression abruptly lighting into shock as she stepped through the threshold. "Tadosh?"

The module beeped again. _Operation complete. You may now remove the module from-_

Tadosh read no further; he snatched the cumbersome box off of the computer and returned it to its resting place deep inside his stuffy mountain of clothing. "Er…" he began, feeling more helpless now than ever, "hello again."

She looked at him as if he perhaps had a third eyeball emerging from his forehead. "What are you _doing_?" she asked in pure stupefaction.

"Tadosh," his earpiece crackled, "they've almost traced us. We need to go dark."

An electric jolt of panic ran through him. "Wait!"

Ithelia recoiled in confusion. "What are you talking about, I'm right here!"

"Not you!" he snapped quickly at the only other person in the room.

"We need to shut down before they have a lock on us," Calpurnius explained hastily, "just meet us back at your apartment with the module and we can go over the data on a closed server."

"But how do I get _out_!?" he cried, clenching his fists in frustration.

"I don't even know how you got _in_!" Ithelia laughed in humorless exasperation.

"Dammit I'm _not_-" he began; his earpiece emitted three low beeps and went dead, leaving only faint static playing in his ear. He sighed and let his arms fall to his sides, turning his head away in a mixture of defeat and dejection. "-talking to you," he finished weakly.

Ithelia's eyes narrowed; she gaped and shook her head blankly, dumfounded by this display of insanity. She searched for words, but before she could find any a procession of people appeared in the doorway behind her, chatting and laughing with one another. In their midst, towering over the rest, was the unmistakable figure of the Emperor. Ithelia turned around in surprise, starting a little at the sight of her company. "Oh – your Majesty!"

His eyes fell immediately on the uninvited guest standing in the middle of his room. His typically aloof expression redoubled in coldness. "Why is he here?" he demanded plainly.

"He…wanted a tour of the upstairs, my Lord," Ithelia smiled pleasantly. "He wanted to see where your Grace lives – he is _such_ an admirer…" She looked at Tadosh, quietly begging for assistance.

"Ah – yes!" he declared very abruptly. "Yes, I am much enamored of His Majesty the Emperor!"

The Emperor sniffed. "Indeed." He strode casually into his bedchamber with lazy strides. "You know, I just now received a message from one of my security officers; he told me that some delinquent had tried to put the name _Tadosh V'tun_ on the guest list – and here you are! What a coincidence…"

The room grew deathly silent; the Emperor betrayed nothing, swiping at some errant specks of dust on his end table. Tadosh looked helplessly at Ithelia, who gave him a helpless gaze of her own. He cleared his throat, suddenly very, very conscious of the heavy weight of the hacking module strapped to his abdomen. "I…I just _really_ wanted to see your bedchamber, your Highness," he tried meekly.

Ithelia buried her face in her palm; the Emperor, preoccupied with the picture frame on his wall, had no immediate response. "Guards?" he spoke at last, "kindly escort this pervert from my palace immediately."

The two soldiers among the entourage stepped forward; Tadosh suddenly realized with a sinking sensation that they would surely discover the machinery stowed away beneath his robes. He took a step back and put out his hands. "There's really no need – I'll just leave…"

"Better safe than sorry," the soldier shrugged; they took another step forward. "We don't want to find you skulking around his Majesty's _bathtub_ later."

At long last, the weight of all the day's indignities tripped some switch deep in Tadosh's mind; he drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. "Do you know who I am – do you have no respect!?" He glared at them with all the contempt he could muster. "I am Tadosh V'tun," he rumbled, "son of Ravil, Lord of Chasca, Governor of Fhladric – and I can _walk_!"

Silence descended upon the room again; the guards froze in place uncertainly. The Emperor turned around, acknowledging his uninvited guest directly for the first time. His face was stony, but nothing could be read from it. "Then walk, governor."

And walk he did, striding from the chamber in a huff, his knees knocking painfully against the sharp chassis of the hacking module with his every step.


End file.
